


What You Deserve

by jewphin



Category: South Park
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - High School, Homophobic Language, Internalized Homophobia, Misogyny, Multi, Recreational Drug Use, basically kyle is kinda a douche
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-08-10
Packaged: 2018-10-14 00:18:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10524954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jewphin/pseuds/jewphin
Summary: Kenny, Cartman and a bunch of Kyle’s other elementary and high school friends have been planning a week-long getaway to an abandoned summer camp near Fort Collins throughout the last couple months of their senior year. Kyle's unsure of whether or not he's glad about this.





	1. 'Stan Marsh's Best Friend'

Kyle slumps back in his chair, tilting his head into the sunlit area of the patio. The warmth of the sun’s beams feels pleasant on his face, providing a contrast to South Park’s usual chilly atmosphere. He closes his eyes to take in the midday silence, nothing but the distant sound of birds chirping. He was going to miss South Park.

“Come on, Kyle. Can you please just consider this for me? Just, please?” Kenny interrupts, much to Kyle’s dismay, and tilts his head pleadingly to the side, his eyes wide, mimicking a puppy in need of attention. His dirty blonde hair is given an iridescent golden sheen in the sunlight. It’s late June and abnormally hot in South Park at the moment. This only worsens Kyle’s mood.

Kyle simply heaves an exasperated sigh; they’ve had this conversation so many times it’s all he can offer.

“I’ve told you, dude, I just can’t find the time for things like that now. Too much shit to do. You know how my mom is,” Kyle reiterates for the umpteenth time, and he’s not lying. Many soon-to-be college freshmen may be spending their summers clearing their minds and living it up instead of obsessing over their upcoming academic months, but unfortunately for Kyle, he wasn’t one of them. He was doomed to spend the final summer of his high school years chasing after internships and making useful, yet unnecessary preparations for the semester to come. This is due to his mother being the uptight, overambitious control freak that she is. It didn’t upset Kyle, being that he’s pretty much used to it at this point, but it certainly contributed to his current quasi-melancholic state.

“Some of our fellow high school seniors are fucking bitches and snorting coke as we speak, you know. A little trip back to summer camp is really fucking soft compared to that. It’s nothing,” Kenny pressed on, miffed.

“That’s not the point, Ken.”

“You’re right. So not the point. The point is that this is your last summer in South Park and you’re spending it with your head in a fucking book. Who knows if you’ll even come back to hang out next summer. Same goes for Butters, Cartman and the rest. And even if you do, I’ll probably be too busy working for us to fuck around like we used to,” Kenny’s still begging, and Kyle’s actually surprised by his perseverance. He usually burns out after trying to guilt trip Kyle into compliance a couple of times. “I’ll talk to your mom, if you need me to.”

“And play the poor-kid card?” Kyle asks, grinning at the thought. In the past, whenever Kenny wanted something from adults, he’d tug on their heartstrings using his poverty as an indisputable advantage. This would definitely work on Kyle’s mom.

“Works like a charm,” Kenny smiles, “Just tell her how depressed I feel about getting left behind in this shithole while all my friends are going off to college. How I’d feel better if I got a chance to spend a part of this summer with you guys. She’s got to agree. No doubt about it.”

Kyle forces a grin. He can’t help but wonder how much truth there is in Kenny’s words. It has to feel kind of miserable to be the only one staying in South Park, especially when there’s nothing he can do to help it. Kenny deserves so much more.

“So then, it’s settled. You’re going,” Kenny says.

“You haven’t even talked to her yet, fucko. Nothing’s guaranteed. Besides, even if she allows it, there’s no point in me going. It’s not like there’s much for me to do there anyway. I’m not close with anyone going,” Kyle argues half-heartedly. Truth be told, Kyle doubted his mother would forbid him from going if he ever asked. But he didn’t. Because he didn’t want to go.

Kenny, Cartman and a bunch of Kyle’s other elementary and high school friends have been planning a week-long getaway to an abandoned summer camp near Fort Collins throughout the last couple months of their senior year. It’s meant to be a fun trip for everyone to spend together one last time before they all go their separate ways, but Kyle suspects it’s just going to end up being an unusually long, insufferable high school party. They chose the camp as the location because a couple of them, including Kyle, had been counselors there the summer following their sophomore year. Kyle would always remember that as the most eventful summer of his life. Not something he wanted to revisit.

“We’ve known most of the people that are going since fucking elementary school. I doubt you’ll have a hard time getting along with any of them. And we’ll all just fuck around like we used to. You, me, Cartman. Stan. The gang. Like we used to be.”

“Yeah, ’cause we’re all going to miss Cartman’s fat ass so goddamned much.  And Stan and I aren’t...-things have changed, Ken,” Kyle says, and he knows it’s true. He’s known for a while now. All he had left was Kenny.

Kenny frowns for a second, his icy blue eyes cast towards the wooden patio floor. In a matter of moments, however, his expression lightens, and he decides to press on.“At least come for me, then. I mean it. And I’m not trying to guilt you into coming so that you can keep an eye on me while I get wasted or some shit, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Kenny’s grinning once again, though Kyle can detect a bit of uncertainty still present in his expression.

How can Kyle reject him? How can anyone?

“Kenny, I…,” Kyle says, at a loss, “I’ll talk to my mom. If she agrees, I’ll go.”

Resistance is tiring. Kyle didn’t have the balls for it, he concluded. Especially when it came to Kenny.

“Yeah!” Kenny exclaims, jumping out of the patio chair in victory. He leans over the table separating him and Kyle, a wide and expectant grin plastered on his freckled face, assuring Kyle that uncertainty he may have been feeling was very evidently replaced by pure joy.

“You’re getting your hopes up, Ken. If she says no- which is very likely, she’ll shit all over your dreams and you can’t blame me,” Kyle says, but he can’t hold back a smirk. Kenny’s smile is infectious.

“Whatever, man. I’ve been hounding you this whole month and you never once agreed to try and convince her. This is a real fucking breakthrough,” Kenny laughs, slouching back into his chair.

“Yeah, right.”

“No, seriously. You’re a total whiz; you could convince anyone of anything if you tried.”

“Yeah. Sure. How about trying to convince Cartman that maybe he isn’t as great as he thinks he is? Or that Hitler was actually the bad guy?” Kyle quips, evoking a chuckle out of Kenny.

“Okay, Cartman is an exception. Because he’s a fucking asshole.”

Kyle lets out a light-hearted laugh, but still can’t seem to shake the feelings of doubt plaguing him about getaway.  He stares out over the Colorado horizon beyond his backyard, smothered by dense clusters of pine trees and rocky mountain peaks. Everything’s just so different this time around. Cartman hasn’t changed, despite his mother’s sudden passing. If anything he’s become even more of a monstrous douche. Kenny’s working hard, though he’s a considerable alky nowadays, similar to his father, which is slightly troubling to say the least. And then there’s Stan… Kyle’s not sure about Stan. Not anymore, anyway.

A couple months before junior year they had a bit of a scuffle. Well, okay, maybe ‘ _scuffle’_ is trivializing the whole situation somewhat, but Kyle never really liked to dwell on the nitty-gritty of regrettable happenings in his life. The gist of it is that at times, Kyle would feel as though he was living in Stan’s shadow. Or rather, he was so engulfed in it he became known as simply ‘Stan Marsh’s best friend’ to the majority of the high school. Which was understandable, seeing as Stan was the star quarterback of the school’s football team, dating the student body president Wendy Testaburger, and had the body and face of a fucking male model. Girls fawned over him wherever he went. Hell, Kyle was pretty sure guys had too, which, no matter how weird it seemed to Kyle, said a lot about Stan’s likability. Of course, all of this was hardly golden boy Stan’s fault, and mostly due to Kyle’s gradually growing ego problem convincing him that his best friend was somehow intruding on his life. This, only worsened by the stress of assignment pressures and teenage impulsivity caused Kyle to inevitably flip his shit on Stan. So one fateful summer’s eve, Kyle called him a dickhead. He called Kyle a self-important prick. Both of them ghosted each other for the entire rest of the summer prior to junior year, and somehow the mindless avoidance extended onwards. You’d think, seeing as they were super best friends, it should have been easy to apologize, but the distance they had created between one another only made it that much more difficult. They were cordial now, sure, but not even close to going back to how they once were. And now he’s meant to spend an entire goddamned week cooped up at the summer camp the two had once ruled, with Stan. Kyle’s not sure what to think.

 

Summer in South Park quickly comes and goes. The long-awaited trip was planned to take place during the hottest week of South Park summer, which arguably wasn’t very hot. Even so, Kyle dressed lighter than he had in years, wearing just dark khaki shorts and a threadbare Broncos t-shirt the morning of the trip. On the ride to the summer camp, he sat smothered in the backseat between an overexcited Butters and Cartman, who stuffed his face with Cheesy Poofs throughout the entirety of the ride. Clyde sat up front in the passenger’s seat, fiddling with the radio. Kenny was driving.

“How come you wanted to ride with us, Clyde?” Butters says, an hour or so into the drive. They are practically in the middle of nowhere at this point, nothing but a long stretch of highway surrounded by an abundance of cornfields.

“Didn’t _want_ to. No space in the other car.”

It was bizarre, Kyle had to admit. Usually, the groups into which the boys are split are clear cut. Kenny, Butters, Cartman, Kyle, Jimmy. Though Jimmy is going separately this time. Something about not wanting to spend three hours in a closed space with Cartman and the putrid stench of his body odor. Kyle couldn’t blame him; he wanted to borrow his mom’s car, but that’s where she ‘ _just about drew the line, mister’_. The other group is that which you would consider the more popular of the two, so Clyde, Craig, Token, Stan and Tweek. Obviously, and Kyle doesn’t mean to be crude, Tweek is just there because he lets Craig stick it up his tight little asshole.

“Seriously? I checked with Stan before and he said there was some,” Kenny points out, as he tries to choose between a country ballad and a classic rock song. He opts for the rock song. Mr. Brownstone.

“Well there wasn’t any when I checked, so.”

“Oh, no. This is about that gay little love triangle you have going with Bebe and Token, isn’t it? God, what a shit show,” Cartman jeers between mouthfuls of Cheesy Poofs.

“Cartman,” Kyle sighs. The tub of lard had a tendency to press this issue ad nauseam. Any issue, really, Kyle thought.

“Shut your mouth, fatboy,” Clyde hisses, keeping his eyes glued to the road in front of him. The others are in the car ahead, and Kyle wonders if Clyde’s trying to make out where Bebe is sitting. Everyone knows he’s had a thing for her since seventh grade, and their relationship really did seem to be going somewhere, until she started dating Token a couple months ago. That was fairly underhanded of Token, to just outright cuck his best friend like that. But hey, a chick’s a chick, and Kyle understood that.

“How is it gay if they’re both in love with a girl?” Kenny asks.

Clyde groans his disapproval of the topic, but Cartman proceeds to explain nonetheless. “Well, they both wanna bone the same girl, so they’re gay by connection. Also, it’s Token and Clyde, anything to do with them is inherently faggy.”

Butters offers a nervous laugh, but everyone else in the car doesn’t even seem to want to gratify the far-reaching observation with a response.

Clyde is provoked, “I swear to God, fatass, shut your goddamned mouth,” he growls.

“You say that about everybody, though,” Kyle speaks up, trying to diffuse the obvious and rapidly rising tension. And he wasn’t lying, back when Stan and him were the closest they’d ever been, around mid sophomore year, every day was a field day for Cartman with his crappy homophobic jokes.

“That’s because he’s the gayest out of all of us, but totally in denial about it.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Clyde, I’m not the one who stole your fucking pussy. It was Token. So I implore to go take out your pent up gay frustrations on him instead of throwing baseless and completely implausible accusations around.” He’s definitely gotten douchier since his mom died, Kyle thinks. If that’s even fucking possible.

“Cartman. Logic. Please,” Kyle’s so worn out by the fat fuck and his backwards thought processes he’s not even worth forming coherent sentences for.

“Oh, Kahl, must you always stick your over-sized Jew nose into others’ business?” Yep. Not even worth talking to.

“Eric, you’re not being very nice,” Butters says; Cartman just grunts in response.

“Cartman. You better shut the fuck up,” Clyde warns, and this time he sounds dead serious. He looks exasperated, and although Kyle has known Clyde to be a rather nonviolent and passive kind of guy, at the moment he seems ready to wring Cartman’s neck.

“No seriously, go suck his dick. Bebe’s doing it, so it shouldn’t be too hard for you,” Cartman presses on, sniggering as he shoves his entire hand into the jumbo Cheesy Poofs bag for the umpteenth time; he averts his gaze for just long enough for Clyde to lunge at him.  

For a moment, Kyle’s vision blurs, a bolt of fear and anxiety ripping through his chest as he feels the car sway, then stop abruptly and with a piercing squeal. Clyde must have nudged Kenny, causing him to lose control of the wheel. Kenny, Cartman and Butters all shout in surprise, Kenny attempting to regain his stability and that of the vehicle. Cartman curses as he tries his best to avoid Clyde desperately swinging his fists at him.

“Clyde, _what the fuck_!” Kenny shouts, barely managing to get back in the right lane.  

“Cartman needs to get the fuck out of this car,” Kyle says, fear making his voice shake. Kyle’s sure they could’ve crashed. They could’ve all died because Cartman is a psychotic piece of shit. God knows it’s not the first time they were close to losing their lives thanks to him.

“I second that,” Clyde says as he retreats back into the passenger seat, his chest heaving. “Let’s throw the fucker out.”

“Fellas, come on, s-stop it,” Butters says, looking about as terrified as a lamb on its way to the slaughter, his wide eyes panicked and restless.

“Not my fault you’re a fucking psycho, Clyde” Cartman says. He leans forward to retrieve his bag of Cheesy Poofs, which had fallen over during the ordeal, half its contents now decorating the floor of the car.

“I’m pulling over, guys. One of you two has to switch with someone from the other car. I’m not fucking crashing because of you assholes,” Kenny says, and so he does.

Cartman is the one to switch cars. Kyle’s now seated between Butters, who dozed off as soon as they hit the road again, and Stan, who volunteered himself for the swap. Always the hero, that Stan Marsh.

In all honesty, sitting beside Stan felt like walking on pins and needles. Kyle’s not half as indifferent as he’d so strongly hoped he’d be these past few years. And, despite his unwavering denial, he actually misses Stan. The physical closeness feels strange. Fulfilling, yet uncomfortable.  He feels like a kid who has just been given a toy he’s wanted for the longest time, his mind occupied with only thoughts of receiving the toy. That is not to say that all he could think about was Stan, however. Because that’s totally gay and totally not what he means. Point being, Stan’s right there. Right beside Kyle. He doesn’t know how to react. He’s overwhelmed. Dumbfounded.  

“You guys okay?” Stan asks, breaking Kyle out of his thoughtful stupor.

“Huh?”

“The whole Cartman thing,” He clarifies, addressing both Kyle and Kenny.

Oh, here we go again with the mock-concern, Kyle thinks. It’s all for appearances as far as he could tell; Stan living up to his perpetual bleeding heart image. He’s always like this when the two are in the company of others. Much more impassive and distant when the two are on their own. Nonetheless, Kyle can’t help but feel slightly… pleased?

“Oh, uh, yeah. I guess so. Looking back, it wasn’t really that big a deal. Clyde barely got a swing at him. We didn’t swerve off the road or anything and I don’t think we could’ve.”

“Good. Cartman’s a fucking nut case,” Stan says, and Kyle laughs. He hates this, pretending that everything is just fine and dandy. Kyle’s way overdue with his apology. Stan is still majorly pissed off at him. He can tell it.

“Always has been. I’m guessing your car ride wasn’t half as eventful as ours?” Kyle decides to continue the pseudo-friendly exchange. Partly because he’s eager to talk to Stan, but also because he’s afraid that if he sits in silence for any longer his steady discomfort will only intensify.

“It was, if you consider Craig and Tweek bickering while Bebe and Token make out eventful,” Stan jokes, earning a chuckle from Kenny. Kyle sneaks a glance at Clyde to make sure they weren’t in for a repeat of the fight from earlier, only to find him dead asleep, leaning on the car door, his head resting in the palm of his hand.

“To be fair, we had Cartman. Something stupid is always bound to happen with that asshole present,” Kenny remarks, and things feel sort of as they used to. “He’s been a raging sociopath since birth. I’m almost certain he came out of the womb shrieking Heil Hitler.”

“Ugh. If there’s one person I’m glad I won’t have to see every day after leaving South Park, it’s gotta be him,” Stan says, slumping into his seat. The backseat of Kenny’s car is snug, and the right side of Kyle’s body is completely pressed up against Stan’s left. For some reason, unbeknownst to Kyle, this makes him feel even more restless. He tries to ignore it.

“Ha, that goes without saying,” Kenny says. “I can’t believe that fat fuck is actually going to make it out of South Park.”

“I can’t even believe _I’m_ going to make it out of South Park,” Stan says.

“Same here,” Kyle indulges him further; simply because this is something he’s pondered previously, and to great extent, to say the least.  “Everyone keeps talking about it- leaving. But no matter how hard I try I can’t picture it.” To Kyle, South Park, no matter how bizarre and insufferable, was just like one big family.  A very dysfunctional, emotionally taxing family, but a family nevertheless.

“You’re going to have a dope time in California, though, dude,” Kenny says suddenly, “I might even come and visit you. Scratch that, I’ll definitely come. Gotta get my ass out of that shithole somehow, too. Plus the babes in California are said to be smoking.”

“Hey, I’m going to be in Cali, too, dude. You’re going to have to come by me as well, then,” Stan says, smiling. He’s going to UCLA on a full scholarship. Football. Kyle’s going to Stanford. A five hour drive, at best.

“We’ll all meet up,” Kenny says. He’s smiling now, too. Unlikely, Kyle thinks, but grins along with him.

Kyle sleeps through the remainder of the drive. When they arrive, he wakes up to find he had been leaning on Stan as he slept; his head perched on Stan’s shoulder. Kyle’s always been one to drool as he slept, so this sent him into a mild, silent panic. He must have slobbered all over his ex-best friend, giving him all the more reason to hate him. He sat upright straight away, eager to get out of the car.  But Stan didn’t seem to mind, staring forward with a focused expression on his face. Of course he doesn’t give a shit. Of course.

“We’re here, guys,” Kenny says, as he pulls up beside a large, wooden cabin. It’s ill-favored and precarious, and Kyle can’t help but imagine the horrified look on his mother’s face if she were to find out that this was going to be his place of residence for the next week or so.  Though, she did allow him to go as a counselor a couple years back, so there shouldn’t be many complaints. Nonetheless, Kyle remembers the campgrounds as being much more pleasant and welcoming. The walls of each cabin are now a muddy gray color, having become dried up and worn over time, with two large windows opening up each wall. There’s a small porch with a couple of lawn chairs at the front of each cabin which seems quite insecure and overlooks the other near identical cabins scattered around the campgrounds. They’re in the centre of a forest, middle of nowhere.

“I feel like we’re in the opening sequence of a nineteen-eighties’ slasher flick,” Kenny comments, as they make their way towards another one of the cabins. It’s considerably larger than the rest, and Kyle immediately recognizes it as the rec center, where they’re supposed to meet with the others.  The interior is wide and empty, with wooden walls and floors of dark blue linoleum.  This is in stark contrast to Kyle’s memory of the center, which he recalls as being lively and brimming with high-spirited children of all ages. There are a couple of benches lined up along the walls, and a large podium at the far end of the room with a sizeable sign that reads _‘Welcome back, campers!’_   hanging by a thread above it. Kyle remembers seeing one just like it on his first day here, in the summer of sophomore year. The staff must’ve forgotten to take it down. In the corner of the center, surrounding one of the benches, the people that have arrived before them are huddled.

“Hey guys, you made it!” Wendy greets as they enter. She’s still as feminine and likable as ever.

“Fucking finally,” Cartman says. He's replaced his bag of Cheesy Poofs in favor of a pretty pink box full of powdered doughnuts, which he devours messily as he speaks.

"We got here literally just three minutes before they did," Wendy says, annoyed. Her tumultuous love-hate relationship with Cartman has survived all throughout high school, serving as an eyesore for the entire student body. It was an unlikely enigma that everyone favored to ignore rather than to try and figure out. Kyle included.

"Whoa, you’re kidding? I guess you guys are so fucking boring that it felt like ages to me," Cartman remarks, scarfing down an entire doughnut in one go. Wendy rolls her eyes in response. They’ve gone through this petty, back and forth bickering so many times that it has become beyond perfection.

“We’re among the first to get here,” Wendy explains, resolving to ignore Cartman. “More people will be arriving in the next couple of hours.”

“More? Like who?” Kyle asks. He guessed that this would involve a far larger amount of people than just those from Mr. Garrison’s old class, which is one of the reasons he wanted to avoid going. As he got older, he had come to hate large social gatherings, especially those of the teenage variety. There are too many people doing too many stupid things. More often than not, he had been one of those people. But lately something’s been putting him off the partying mood.

“The majority of the seniors, I think. Most of them will only be here for a night or so, though,” Wendy says, almost as if to ease Kyle’s weariness. She’s always been perceptive. Add that onto the endless list of traits that allow her to qualify as the world’s most perfect human being.

“Cool, the more people the better,” Kenny chimes in, taking a seat on one of the unoccupied benches. He removes a tall, glass bottle of clear liquid from his bag and twists the lid off, then takes a swig. “Now, I gotta pregame before this party starts. Kyle, care to join me?”

“You’re kidding, right? An uptight Jew-princess of Kyle’s variety would never even dare touch alcohol for fear of his bitch of a mother finding out about it,” Cartman explains, feigning seriousness. “If you listen closely, you can hear her belligerent cries all the way from South Park.”

“Shut your fat fucking face, Cartman,” Kyle retorts. Despite this, it seems Cartman’s made Kyle’s decision for him, because Kyle plops down next to Kenny and grabs the bottle of vodka straight out of his hands. What’s the harm in drinking your feelings, anyway?

A couple of hours following their arrival, Kyle can’t seem to recall how many drinks he’s had, though the empty bottles of bear and vodka surrounding the bench he and Kenny are sprawled across are pretty telling. Kyle’s drunk off his ass.

“Ya good, Kyle?” Kenny slurs, waving a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels around as he speaks. Kyle imagines Kenny’s substantially more intoxicated than he, despite the fact that Kyle has always been a lightweight and more easily affected by alcohol than he’d liked to admit.

“Uh, yeah, think so,” Kyle answers, “I think I should, um, go for a walk or-or something. Clear my head.”

“Want me to come with ya?” Kenny offers, much to Kyle’s surprise.

“Why?” It was bizarre that Kenny even stayed with him up until this moment, considering that his preferred party pastime had been chasing hot girls around for as long as Kyle can remember. Kenny loved tits. With an unwavering, sort of trifling passion. In eighth grade he even managed to persuade Ms Evers, perhaps the most attractive teacher Kyle had ever laid eyes on in his eighteen years of life, to allow him a gaze upon her bodacious bosom. He became a legend among the male student body, with his incorrigible charm and love of breasts to thank. She became incarcerated.

“Wha- why?” Kenny repeats, half-amazed he even needed a reason, half genuinely pondering the reasoning himself. After a couple moments of silent contemplation he states, “I’m your friend, Kyyyyle. Why should I let you do things alone?”

Kyle can’t help but grin at Kenny’s sincere, albeit drunken response. “You really the best friend, Ken. Seriously, the best.”

“I mean I have to be. Especially since you’ve been pretty down the past year or so. I just want to see my Ky happy,” Kenny says, now also grinning.

Kyle resolves to ignore how incredibly gay that sounded. “Down? I’ve been… down?” he asks, and he’s actually surprised to hear this. Sure, things have changed, but Kyle wouldn’t say he’s depressed about it. Not too depressed, anyway.

“Yeah, I guess with the college thing and the Stan thing and what have you.”

“I… I don’t - Stan isn’t,” Kyle is at a loss for words. He’s a sputtering mess and can never seem to collect his thoughts on this topic, resulting in an ugly, incoherent pile of word vomit. Great job, Broflovski, he thinks. Real articulate. What he so desperately wants to convey is that the Stan thing did not affect him that severely. It couldn’t have. The mere insinuation that it did made Kyle’s blood boil, though once again he’s unsure as to why.

“I’m gonna go now, Kenny. Thanks,” Kyle huffs. He decides it’s best to skedaddle before taking his anger out on poor, wasted Ken.

“Uh, yeah, okay. See ya, fag,” Kenny laughs; he tries pitifully to wink but just ends up blinking. He seems confused but not bothered, and Kyle’s glad. Kenny needs a break from baby-sitting him, at least for tonight.

 

 Kyle’s been wandering around the camp site aimlessly for the past half-hour or so, if he were to venture a guess. In that time span, the once barren, wide expanse of land that was the site has become progressively more crowded and lively. The individuals occupying it are either abusing various substances or suffering the consequences thereof, which ranged from random acts of vandalism to impulsive sexual deviations. Some people are familiar, most complete strangers. Kyle tries his best to avoid either group.

By some unfortunate miracle, Kyle still isn’t sober. He’s now attempting to drunkenly maneuver himself away from the thickening crowd and through the sparse pine forest serving as a blockade between him and his intended destination. The lake. Smaller than most and crystal clear, the lake was a few kilometers west to the campsite, surrounded by a wealth of rocky mountain peaks. It had always been a soothing place; an ideal escape from his thoughts and into nature in his camping days. Generally, he was never all that fond of nature, being that his parents forced him into camp, but he had gone with Stan and it had become their special spot. Their secret hideaway.

Despite his clumsy swaying and swaggering, Kyle eventually arrives at the lake. He stops himself right at the edge, teetering insecurely over the still waters. The sky is pitch black, illuminated by an abundance of stars scattered densely throughout it, the full image reflected in the vast pool of water below.  It feels surreal. Nostalgic. A tidal wave of repressed emotions washes over Kyle in a matter of seconds. He wishes for things the way they once were. He wishes he hadn’t been such a massive dick to Stan.

“Kyle?”

That sends him over the edge. Quite literally over the edge. He’s fallen into the lake. Momentarily, he’s striped of all his senses, enveloped by the bottomless blue abyss. It’s startlingly silent. Almost peaceful. Freezing cold. Lifeless and vulnerable to the massive void, he curls up into the fetal position, resigned to drowning in the cavernous pool of water he found himself submerged within. It takes him a couple seconds to actually start thrashing about the water, trying to swim up to the surface to no avail. This is it. His own jumpiness would be his cause of death. Could there be a more pitiful way to go?

In a flash, another form plunges into the water about a meter to the side of him. His vision is heavily obscured by both water and shock, but he can roughly discern the outline of a brown bomber jacket and dark blue beanie. The figure’s fighting through the water to get to him now, and Kyle’s uncertain whether to be scared or relieved. He feels a harsh grip on his shoulder, only to be heaved upwards through the water, all the way up to the surface, desperately panting and gasping for breath. He’s clinging onto the figure now, his knight in shining armor, coughing out bitter mouthfuls of water.

“Are you okay?” the person asks. Kyle’s arms are snaked lamely around their neck, his head resting on their shoulder, facing over the wide stretch of still water that almost killed him just a couple of moments prior. He doesn’t have to see the person’s face to distinguish who it is. The softness in his voice is unmistakable, it conceals his concern; he’d use it to soothe Kyle in distressing situations much like this one when they were younger. Stan, always the white knight.

“Uh, I-” Kyle starts weakly. His voice is small, barely audible, and he removes himself from Stan’s comforting embrace with caution. Hesitating as he does so, though he would never admit it. His masculinity is already compromised to a critical level thanks to the evening’s events, mainly due to the lost damsel in distress act. He’s now face to face with Stan, closer than they had been in years. Somehow, his blue eyes seem to have gotten bluer, more intense, and reminiscent of the deep blue abyss that had just consumed him.

“Y-Yeah,” he chokes out finally. “Thanks.”

Stan nods and wordlessly pushes his way through the water and towards the shore, Kyle following in his wake.

 He’s now lying on his back, exhausted and dripping wet from head to toe, looking up at the night sky. With Stan. Yes, his ex-super best friend Stan, the one he’d basically told to fuck off after seventeen years of supposed super-best friendship. The one that didn’t even try to reach out to him after the fact.

This certainly isn’t how he wanted their first heart to heart since then to play out. Not when he’s soaking wet, out of breath and red in the face, his clothing uncomfortably stuck to his skin at the most unflattering of angles. He feels vulnerable. And there’s Stan, who had just gone through the same ordeal and somehow recovered looking fucking god-like in the pale moonlight. To infuriate Kyle even further, sometime after they’d reached the shore, he removed both his jacket and shirt, exposing his abs for the entire world to see. Well, for only Kyle to see, being that he’s the only one present. Not that Kyle wants to see that anyway. Get your mind out of the gutter.

They remain like that, silent and still, for what feels like decades to Kyle. Finally, the uncomfortable silence is broken by a soft, restrained giggle from Stan.

A fucking giggle. Kyle’s really confused now. “Did you- Did you just… giggle at me?” He plays along. At least now femininity levels are equaled between the two.

This evokes an actual laugh out of Stan. It’s breathy and genuine, and for a fleeting moment it feels as though the two never even separated. But only for a moment.

“I-,” He laughs, “I’m sorry, but the look on your face, Kyle. I call your name and it’s enough to send you ever the edge. Literally.” He stops laughing but continues to grin, amused.

“Dude,” Kyle just stares, “don’t. That sounds too gay.” And now he’s laughing, too. “I didn’t even know it was you.”

“Who did you think it was?”

“I dunno. Cartman, come to steal me away in the night time,” Kyle jokes, shivering at the thought. Not like it hasn’t happened before, though. At this point, Cartman had become a pro at sneaking into Kyle’s bedroom through his window. Not at all for the reasons you’re thinking. Oh God. Why was everything starting to sound so gay lately?

“Dude, now that’s gay,” Stan says. Wonderful, so he’s noticed too.

He’s drunk, perhaps drunker than Kyle, though the whole drowning debacle had to have sobered the both of them up a bit. Still, Kyle doubts Stan can be this comfortable with him and not at least tipsy, being that in the past two years he’s only acted as such while in the company of others. Always fucking fronting. Now it feels like it’s Kyle’s first time genuinely talking to Stan since the fight. Strange.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” Stan asks. The excited glimmer in his eyes is fading, and Kyle wonders how long it’ll be before the alcohol fully wears off and clarifies the situation for him. This is not your super best friend, Stan. He’s a traitor, remember? You hate him, remember? 

“Romantic midnight stroll,” Kyle quips, mainly due to his own uncertainty about why he wound up here of all places. Well, he has an idea, but it’s far too sentimental and girlish for him to even consider voicing to Stan.

“By yourself? That’s the saddest thing I’ve heard in a while,” he concludes.

“It’s more fun than you think. Plus, it can’t be sadder than Cartman’s rendition of ‘Poker Face’,” Kyle presses on. Stan’s going to blow up on him at one point or another, so why not indulge him for now?

“Oh God. That’s not even sad it’s just extremely depressing. He was going at it on karaoke in the rec center, earlier. Be glad you missed it,” Stan laughs half-heartedly.

“So then,” Kyle starts, “why are you here?”

 He takes a minute to reply, turning to face the lake as he does so. “Looking for someone.”

“Oh.” This isn’t surprising, in the least. For South Park standards, Stan has become somewhat of a Casanova. “A romantic midnight stroll of your own, then?”

Stan grins in response, but he seems to have lost his inebriated cheer from just moments ago. Kyle’s currently wishing he hadn’t taken up Kenny’s habit of cracking jokes in the midst of serious situations.

“Who you waiting for then, Stanny boy?” Oh God, shut up.

Stan doesn’t respond, looking across the lake with a particularly pensive look on his face and thereby initiating one of the most uncomfortable silences Kyle has ever taken part of. This was his chance. He needs to apologize. Now.

“Stan, I-”

“It’s been really difficult, you know,” he says finally.

Kyle’s quiet for a moment. “What are you-”

“Having to pretend like everything is just fucking fine with the two of us.”

“Wow, straight to the point with you, then,” Kyle comments, and it comes out sounding a little sharper than he intended it to.

“I’m being serious, Kyle. You know _exactly_ what I mean,” he says. The tone of his voice suggests he’s certain, but Kyle can tell by the wary look in his eyes that he’s searching for something, for a sign that Kyle hasn’t actually forgotten about their fight. About him.

“Stan,”

“I can understand why you got angry,” he cuts Kyle off, again. “Hell, you’ve always been the pissy one among us, but after that, you just said nothing. Not a word. I began to think you hated me, and-”

“Don’t say that, please,” Kyle interjects this time, suddenly sounding much more faint and restrained. “I could never hate you, Stan.”

Stan turns to look at Kyle for the first time since mentioning their argument, and he doesn’t look angry, just miserable. Genuinely miserable. The look in his eyes is making Kyle want to die.

“Then why did you do all that? You didn’t even apologize, Kyle. We’ve been best friends for years and you couldn’t even apologize,” he accused, anger creeping into his voice.

Kyle sighs, preparing to give his long-awaited explanation. “Immediately after the fight, I realized what a dick I was being. I was sure you wouldn’t want to talk to me at all, and as time passed, I just became surer of it. I didn’t deserve you as a friend, Stan. I don’t.”

“That’s a shitty excuse, Kyle. It really is.”

“It was a huge dick move on my part, I admit it. But you didn’t say anything, either,” Kyle states, regretting his unwavering need to justify himself by pressing the issue right away. If only he could shut up, just this once.

Stan scrutinizes him indignantly, looking rather affronted. Kyle can’t blame him, shifting uncomfortably under his gaze.

“Whoa, okay, sorry I was mad that you fucking blew up on me out of nowhere and then ignored me for like two years after it happened. Really, my bad,” he says. His hands are balled into fists, his brows furrowed into a pointed glare, unmistakably directed at his dick of an ex-best friend.

“I- I didn’t mean it that way,” Kyle says, a bit caught off guard. Stan’s accusatory tone of voice is threatening to set him off, but seeing as he’s the one in the wrong, he resolves to restrain himself. For now. “I just mean that, since I was so convinced that you didn’t want to talk to me, if you had said something at the time I figure it would’ve been helpful. Maybe I would’ve been less of a pussy and apologized sooner.”

“You wanted _me_ to help you apologize to _me_?” Stan suggests, seething.

“No. I just- I was convinced that you hated me, okay? Just like you were, I guess. And I needed conformation that you didn’t actually want to kill me, and even though Kenny tried millions of times to assure me you didn’t, I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t know how to deal with it.”

Stan stares, incredulous. “I honestly have no idea how I feel about you, Kyle,” he says, an unfamiliar look in his eyes. Almost as though he’s looking at Kyle as intently as possible, afraid he might disappear at any moment.

Kyle’s heart jumps, though he’s unsure as to why. He simply dismisses it, assuming it's all this talk of feelings along with the prolific amounts of alcohol he consumed making him a bit nauseous.

“I can’t blame you. If you hate me now, I mean,” Kyle says, grinning pathetically. He feels sick, like he just might toss his cookies all over Stan’s lap. Stan appears just as miserable as he feels.

“Stan?” A familiar, feminine voice calls out, cutting off Stan’s response. The two turn towards the forest, only to see Wendy’s small frame emerge from between the dense thicket of pine. “Oh, hey Kyle! I didn’t realize you’d be here too. Great!” She’s clearly tipsy.

“I was just going back, actually,” he smiles at her. Looks like Stan found who he was searching for, he thinks, feeling much too bitter about this. Once again, he resolves to blame it on the uncomfortable, impromptu heart to heart and Kenny’s jungle juice. Nothing more to it.

He stands up, hoping to stalk off towards the forest before the impending mental breakdown he’s expecting hits him like a ton of bricks. Stan saved Kyle’s life today, he doesn’t need to witness another one of his excruciatingly pathetic scenes. God knows there are too many of them as it is.

 

 


	2. Jilted Teenage Girl

 

Kyle wakes up alone in an otherwise unoccupied cabin. His head throbs with an intense hangover, his stomach threatening to empty its vile contents all over the unassuming bedspread. He somehow manages to postpone puking, and heaves himself up from the bed, deciding to search for Kenny and the rest of his friends rather than dwell on last night’s occurrences.

He can barely recall the events anyway but he’s got a sickening feeling that they’ll creep back into his memory at the most inopportune moments. Subconsciously, he’s aware that he’s done somethin stupid and thoughtless, as per usual, so he goes with his most frequent action plan in situations such as this one. Denial. Denial and avoidance. The destructive duo, as Kenny refers to it.

The blond in question isn’t very difficult to find, being that a hung-over Kenny is a creature of habit. In Kyle’s experience, he’s always been found in one of two places- in close proximity to the booze, still nursing a bottle of whichever alcohol he’s managed to get his hands on, or surrounded by a group of girls who are likely as familiar to him as Cartman to his father. Today, Kyle discovers, it’s both of these scenarios at once.

He finds Kenny sprawled across the wide set of steps leading to the rec centre entrance, half empty bottle of what Kyle assumes is vodka clutched to his chest and encircling him are a hoard of attractive, scantily clad girls Kyle’s never seen before in his life. He’s unsure of whether he’s saddened or amused by the fact that this is probably Kenny’s most authentic state of being. Passed out drunk yet still swimming in pussy.

He walks up the steps towards the group, nudging Kenny’s limp body with his foot, careful not to wake the mass of unconscious bodies surrounding him in a heap of entangled limbs. The blond stirs, but remains unresponsive. It takes a couple of harsh jabs to his ribs to actually bring him to consciousness, which Kyle must admit he delivers a little too eagerly. He feels agitated as shit, and he has a sneaking suspicion that he’s got more than just his hangover to blame.

“Unghhh,” Kenny whales finally, rolling onto his side.

“Well good morning to you too, sunshine,” Kyle says. He sounds as bitter as the inside of his mouth tastes from the lingering flavor of last night’s alcohol. “Have a good time last night?”

Kenny grunts another response.

“I’ll take that as a yes, then,” he says, although he knows Kenny most likely remembers less than he does about the entire evening. Kenny’s always had the uncanny ability to out drink the majority of South Park citizens, including his own father, who is, in every sense of the word, a notorious alcoholic. Kyle really hated riding his dick about his drinking habits, and at the moment he wasn’t one to talk, seeing as he’d gotten almost as plastered the night before. Nonetheless, he says “Let’s get you sobered up, dude.”

Kenny’s perhaps even less willing to get up than he was moments ago, gripping onto his liquor bottle with so much vigor his knuckles turn white. Kyle registers the hints he’s dropping telling him to fuck off, but he ignores them. He sure as hell isn’t going to be sober alone.

He kneels down, ripping the bottle straight out of Kenny’s hands and proceeding to spill its contents out into one of the nearby bushes.

“Hey- Hey! Dude!” Kenny exclaims, bolting upwards off his ass straight away. He trips over himself on his first couple attempts to stand upright, still suffering a hangover, but finds his footing after a few moments of disoriented stumbling.

“Now you’re awake?”

“Well, excuse me for trying to save my baby from being wasted by you for no fucking reason,” Kenny grumbles while reaching for the now empty vodka bottle, coddling it in his arms as if it were truly his own child. “There, there, baby. You had a good run.”

“You’re babying a bottle of vodka right now and yet you can still somehow deny having a problem,” Kyle sighs, “you’re level of denial is impressive.”

Kenny scoffs exaggeratedly, then grins and drops the bottle on the rec centre steps, beside the few passed out individuals who were now also starting to awaken.

“How was your evening, dude?” He question, his signature devil-may-care grin returning to his face as he slings his arm around Kyle’s shoulders. He reeks of alcohol and what Kyle believes to be marijuana, and Kyle wonders for a moment if he also smells this repulsive. “Find any hot Jewish girls you wanna spend the rest of your life with? Or, you know, bone?”

“Doubtful. But since I have no idea what I was up to last night, I’m not ruling out the possibility. Mom would be proud,” Kyle says. “How about you?”

 It’s a stupid question; Kenny always manages to get laid. He’s the most charming person Kyle knows and can be considered quite hot in an outlandish hick sort of way. Or so Kyle’s heard. He didn’t come to that conclusion off his own accord, no way.

“I remember jack shit from last night, same as you,” Kenny says with a laugh. “But judging from all of them,” he gestures towards the blacked out girls in a far too theatrical manner, “I think it’s fair to assume some nasty shit went down.”

He wiggles his eyebrows suggestively, and Kyle holds back a laugh in favor of an expression of mock disgust. “You’re such a dog, Ken,” he says, rolling his eyes.

“And proud of it.”

The two make their way into the rec centre, hoping to find something to eat without fear of getting mauled by Cartman; that fucker may have dropped half his weight following his mother’s death somehow, but his obsession with food persists to this day. There’s no way he’d share, especially not with the dirty Jew and token poor kid.

“Yo, kiddos,” Kenny announces their arrival to the few familiar faces. Among the people inside are Wendy, Cartman (there goes their plan of eating in peace), Token, Bebe, and Stan.

Stan. Kyle cringes involuntarily at the sight of him, and from the murky haze that are the previous night’s memories he can recall that he was with Stan. He was with Stan and was almost certain he had done something idiotic. The look of what seems to be contrition and disgust that appears on Stan’s face upon noticing him only serves as confirmation for Kyle’s suspicions, further supported by the immediate aversion of his gaze. He’s avoiding Kyle. Shit. He goes back to the conversation he was having with Token and Cartman, acting aloof. Oh, two can play at that game, Stanley, Kyle thinks. Two can play at that game.

Wendy and Bebe are sitting on a worn out three-seater couch in the corner of the centre that someone probably dragged in last night from God knows where, eating sandwiches and barbecue flavored Pringles. They aren’t Kyle’s favorite, but he can go for anything right about now. The question is whether or not he can keep them down, but Kyle will cross that bridge once he reaches it.

“Mind if we steal some of your Pringles?” He asks and takes a seat beside Bebe on the three-seater, sinking into the tan cushions. Kenny balances himself on the arm of the couch beside Kyle.

“Help yourselves,” Wendy says with a smile, and both girls extend their arms to Kyle and Kenny, offering up their snacks. Kyle gladly accepts, sticking half of his forearm into the narrow can, struggling to reach for a chip, while Kenny shakes his head at the gesture, his nose wrinkling at the fresh smell of the food. Kyle smiles in amusement.

“Kenny, you had a good time last night,” Bebe says, smirking.

“I did?” Kenny ventures. He clearly isn’t surprised, but who would be? It’s _Kenny_.

“Yeah, with those two cute juniors. They were following you around the entire night; it was really hard not to pay attention.”

Kyle smirks at that; Bebe would find it hard not to pay attention to paint drying if it were something she could gossip about. She was on top of the most relevant rumors as far as Kyle could remember, both starting and quelling them.

“I remember nothing, unfortunately,” he responds, downcast. “Threesome, then? Haven’t had one of those in a while.”

“ _Kenny_ ,” Kyle and Wendy warn in unison, both no doubt fazed by how casually he talks about the matter. Wendy because it can be considered degrading. Kyle because he’s envious.

“It’s quite possible,” Bebe says, giggling.

“Do you even know their names, Kenny?” Wendy asks, and she sounds a fair bit disappointed.

“Well, like I said, I remember nothing,” he smirks, “so I may as well not have done anything, right? I’m a good kid, Wends. A proper Butters.”

Kyle gives a sardonic nod in response. “Flawless logic,” he says.

“And if I had to take a guess about what I was doing last night, I’d have to say I was with my best buddy, Kyle. We’re practically attached at the hip, you see.”

“That’s gay, Kenny.”

“You’re gay, Kyle,” He says and winks. The girls are both amused and confused at this point, and Kenny presses on. “We’re best _butt_ buddies, so of course I’d know.”

“Kenny, Jesus Christ,” Kyle groans, slouching down further into the foamy couch cushions as the gangly blond tries to lean towards him.

“Stop being such a homophobe, Kyle. Let me love you, baby,” Kenny pleads, and Kyle physically convulses at ‘baby’. Kenny’s always gotten immense enjoyment out of making Kyle want to crawl out of his skin, and one of his most recent tactics is blatant gay advances. It’s extremely effective, as you can tell. The girls are both howling with laughter now, causing Kenny to look rather satisfied with himself. Douche.

“You know I’d give anything to know what I was doing last night just to confirm that I wasn’t with you,” Kyle says, and he means it. Embarrassing himself in front of Stan beat being gay with Kenny any day. Probably.

“Aw, come on now, Kyle. You’re breaking my heart here.”

“Weren’t you at the lake?” Wendy ponders.

“I was?” He was. He sort of recalls walking there to get away from the crowd; it would make sense since he’s been quite the introvert for as long as he can remember and, as Kenny would say, it’s just the Kyle thing to do.

“Yeah, with Stan,” She says brightly. “Right, Stan?”

Shit. All four of them turn to face the bench a couple feet to the right of them, where Token and Stan seem to be deep in conversation about something football related, while Cartman devours a chili dog. Kyle wonders where he could’ve pulled that out from, almost completely distracted from his own conversation. Almost.

“Uh, what?” Stan asks.

“You were at the lake with Kyle, right? When I came by last night?”

Stan is silent for a moment, and Kyle swears he glances at him briefly, once again looking repulsed and regretful. Why is he so goddamned shaken up? What happened that was so drastic that he can’t even look at Kyle anymore without making a face like he’s on the verge of puking out all of his organs? To be fair, he didn’t seem to enjoy looking at Kyle much before, considering the circumstances, but it had without a doubt gotten worse.

“Oh, um, yeah. We ran into each other, for like, a minute,” he explains, trying to sound nonchalant but Kyle can tell he feels uneasy.

“Dude, we don’t need to hear about your gay midnight rendezvous with your boyfriend. That’s sick,” Cartman taunts. “I might throw up my chili dog. My poor, precious chili dog.”

“Shut the fuck up, fatso,” Kyle says. Cartman may not be an obese tub of lard anymore but Kyle’s pretty sure that insults pertaining to his weight still get to him.

“I’m just warning you, Kyle. Not my fault if I end up blowing chunks in your face because you and your gay lover can’t keep the dirty talk in the bedroom.”

“Cartman,” Token sighs, rolling his eyes. Beside him, Stan looks _angry_. He’s fuming. Kyle doesn’t want to admit it, but he’s kind of terrified. Wendy on the other hand appears worried, probably assuming that she’s the one who somehow set this off by asking the question.

“I’m just being honest.”

“Honest? I’m surprised you can even say the word without cringing or ceasing to exist or something,” Kenny comments, and Kyle and the girls laugh in agreement. Masking his malicious remarks as brutal honesty is Cartman’s trademark. It has been since they were in preschool. “Besides, I know it’s a lie because who wouldn’t want to witness Stan and Kyle’s sexy time? That’s got to be an enlightening experience. I know I’m up for it.”

“You couldn’t just drop it, could you, Ken?” Kyle groans, narrowly escaping Kenny’s attempt at giving him a big sloppy smooch on the cheek. As he’s leaning back into the couch cushions as low as he can go, Stan leaves the room.

“What got his panties in a bunch? Oh, that’s right, you did, Kyle.”

“Kenny!” Kyle yells and punches him in the shoulder. “Enough with all the gay innuendos, please.”

“I’d have to second that.”

“Same here.”

“Whoa, and here I was thinking South Park was a progressive redneck mountain town,” Kenny wails in a very woe-is-me type of way.

“I think it’s hot,” Bebe says, and Kenny laughs.

About an hour later, Kyle and Kenny are left alone in the rec centre, stretched out across the couch. Kyle’s lost in thought, trying to remember the night before, while Kenny smokes a joint beside him.

“Are you still stressing about the gay stuff,” Kenny asks after a while of sitting in silence.

“No. But it’d be totally justified if I was since it’s weird and douchey of you to bring it up all the time.”

Kenny cackles a bit as he inhales from the joint, causing him to have a coughing fit. “I’m- I’m sorry, but your reactions are priceless. And you wouldn’t react so heatedly if there wasn’t some truth in my statement.” He flashes his flawless toothy grin and Kyle wonders how he managed to keep all his teeth throughout the years. More than that, how’d he keep them so white? Either Kenny’s naturally very attractive or he has a hidden passion for pristine oral hygiene.

“I’m not gay, Kenny,” Kyle grumbles.

“Of course not, maybe just a little bisexual?” He sounds hopeful, and Kyle hates him for it.

“Fuck you, dude.”

“But seriously, what’s got you so pissed?” Kenny asks, and he offers Kyle the joint he’s smoking.

Kyle gladly accepts, taking a long drag before responding. “Stan’s been avoiding me,” he says.

“Yeah, for about the past two years. What else is new?”

“No, I mean I was with him last night, and-”

Kenny raises his eyebrows in amusement.

“Not like that, Kenny. Fuck off, dude.”

“I didn’t say anything. You’re kind of digging your own grave here.”

Kyle rolls his eyes, but proceeds nonetheless. “I _ran into him_ last night, and I’m almost one hundred percent certain I did something  stupid. He can’t even look at me without looking like he wants to die.”

“You can’t remember anything?”

“Well, we were at the lake, and I’m pretty sure I was soaked so either I had fallen in or willingly taken a swim. Knowing me, it’s probably the former. But that’s about it.”

“Okay, I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable here, promise, but this story gets gayer the more you remember,” he says, and although he may be attempting to be serious for once, he can’t seem to hold back a smirk. “Maybe just repress it before you find out something you don’t wanna know. Or, you know, just ask Stan about it?”

“The repressing idea sounds great, thanks,” Kyle dismisses. “Though, what horrible thing could I have done which I haven’t already. I mean, I’ve pretty much succeeded in fully laying waste to our friendship by this point, so.”

A look of realization crosses Kenny’s face and he opens his mouth to speak, but decides he better not moments after.

“What? What is it?” Kyle questions.

Kenny gives him a look like he’s done poking the bear with a stick, leading Kyle to understand that he’s come to a rather alarming conclusion.

“Kenny, I’m serious, spit it out.”

“So, Bebe got hot, huh?” Kenny remarks, trying to change the subject but to no avail.

“Kenny.”

“You won’t like what I have to say, Kyle, trust me. Don’t push it,” he says. Kyle scoffs; he’s physically incapable of not pushing it, Kenny knows that. He’s his mother’s son, after all.

“I’ll kill you, Kenny. I swear to God, I’ll kill you if you don’t tell me.”

“When has that ever worked in the past, though?” Kenny asks, laughing at the thought. “Tell you what, I’ll propose my theory, but you have to promise not to get all up in arms about it, okay?”

Kyle eyes him with suspicion, but relents eventually. “Yeah, yeah. Take it away,” he says. “Not like you haven’t dragged me through the mud enough today, as it is.”

“No holds barred, Kyle. I’m laying it bare.”

“When don’t you?”

Kenny grins then proposes with caution, “What if you two, like, kissed or something?”

Oh, hell no. Upon reflecting on it, Kyle shouldn’t have expected an honest answer to begin with, being that he knows that Kenny will take any chance he gets to make him go red in the face. And, of course, he’s succeeded. Kyle’s face flushes beat red and he gives Kenny a disdainful look, trying to remain somewhat nonchalant about this. “For fuck’s sake, dude,” he says, disappointed.

“I’m being serious.”

“Sure you are.”

“Dude, I am. It’s the most logical explanation I can think of. First off, you were alone together, which usually leads to intimate heart to hearts with people like the two of you. Second-”

“And what type of people are we?” Kyle interjects, ready to get offended.

“You have a history and shit,” he says, “now will you let me finish?”

Kyle sighs an affirmative response, conceding.

“Good. Okay, secondly, you two were naked in the lake together, and-”

“We weren’t naked!”

“ _And_ ,” he drawls, emphasizing his annoyance at the interruption, “I don’t know about you, but that sets a pretty romantic if not sexual”-Kyle cringes-“scene to me. Skinny dipping comes to mind?”

“Like I said, asshole, we weren’t fucking naked,” Kyle says and fails miserably at his resolve to not be a temperamental douche for once.

“You were wet. That’s close enough.” Kenny has seen enough wet T-shirt contests to be sure of this, and Kyle knows it. “And now for my final point.”

“Wonderful.”

“The avoidance. He’s acting like a teen girl who just got her first kiss stolen by the resident bad boy. All shy and moody and shit. Hot and cold. Trust me I know,” he concludes and flashes a playful grin.

“Right. Okay,” Kyle ponders. He doesn’t want to admit it by any means, but there is some logic to what Kenny’s proposing. Ugh. “Say your idiotic theory’s actually true. Stan would never react that way if I kissed him. He’s not some jilted teenage girl. He’s the straightest guy I’ve ever met, and the quarterback for Christ’s sake. He would’ve kicked my teeth in by now had I made a pass at him. And rightfully so.”

“First off, this is Stan we're talking about. I doubt he'd ever punch anyone, let alone his super best friend-"

"Ex-super best friend," Kyle corrects. 

Kenny rolls his eyes. 

"Right. Secondly, you’re forgetting that Stan reacts to pretty much anything stressful like a jilted teenage girl. When you moved to San Francisco he wrote a song about it. He turned Goth when Wendy broke up with him for the first time,” Kenny sing-songs matter-of-factly. 

“...Shit. You’re right about that,” Kyle says. Their two year break must have really skewed Kyle's opinion of his ex best friend, or at least caused Kyle to put him on some bizarre sort of love-hate pedestal. Either way, they couldn’t have- Nope, Kyle isn't thinking about this. It makes him convulse in discomfort, wanting to both pull all his hair out and crawl out of his own skin. Now he knew what Tweek felt like, on a daily basis.

Kenny was putting idea into his head to freak him out, as he always did. “Nah, fuck you, man. It’s impossible. That can’t be it.”

“Think what you want, baby. I’m just giving you my two cents,” Kenny smiles, grabbing the almost burned out joint out Kyle’s hands and taking one final drag before chucking it away.

"You're so gay, Kenny," Kyle remarks, sulking.

Kenny sighs, "You're telling me."

They sit in silence for a few minutes, Kyle pondering the plausibility of Kenny's ludicrous suggestion, Kenny wadding up candy wrappers and aiming them at the already over-flowing nearby trashcan. The silence is soothing, and after his overly eventful evening Kyle supposes he needs it. Kenny may behave as though he's genuinely disturbed, but silence is never uncomfortable with him. Kyle assumes this to be a result of him once being a kid of few words, who, when he did speak, was barely heard beneath his heavy orange parka. It was something they had all grown accustomed to, Kenny's quiet. Kyle wasn't sure when exactly Kenny became such a curious conversationalist. Presently, he could go without it. Kenny's way too inquisitive. Way too observant.

The calmness of the room is interrupted by Clyde barging in through the door, followed by their entire band of childhood friends. What a sight.

“We’re playing capture the flag,” Clyde announces, “so get off your asses.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Kyle asks; Clyde’s the only one amongst his friends that looks genuinely excited to be doing this, and, seeing as they just shared a joint, Kyle and Kenny would mcuh prefer to sit around doing nothing.

“Why, Jew, afraid I’ll kick your ass?” Cartman asks, suddenly thrilled to be participating. He’s such a competitive dick, especially when it comes to Kyle.

“Yeah, whatever. Let’s do this,” he says while dragging Kenny up from the couch and towards the group. He can’t be bothered to argue when he’s somewhat high, either.

They’re split into two groups among the fourteen of them. The fourteen OGs as Kenny calls them. Wendy’s group consists of Kenny, Kyle, Token, Red, Clyde, and Jimmy. Cartman’s group is Stan, Bebe, Craig, Tweek, Nichole, and Butters.

He voices his delight about not having both the Jew and the cripple on his squad numerous times, and Kyle elbows him in the gut for each remark he makes. Leaving the rec centre was definitely worth it if it allowed him to harm Cartman this often.

They split the campgrounds into two territories, one for each team. Wendy’s ran from the edge of the lake, through a wide thicket of trees, all the way up to the rec centre, which was at the very heart of the entire campsite and thus the dividing line. They chose their base as the narrow dock at the lake and placed their makeshift flag, an old red rag tied to a stick, at the far end of it, protruding  well into the lake, allowing it to be surrounded at all sides by the body of water. The team members remaining stationary at the base to protect it were Token and Clyde, chosen for their football backgrounds and suitable builds- tall and buff, and Jimmy who had the capability of using his crutches to ward off unwanted trespassers. The ones patrolling their territory for any opposing team members were Red and Kenny, as they were proficient as runners, or at least could be if they tried. Finally, Kyle and Wendy were chosen as the offensive, to venture into enemy territory and retrieve their flag, bringing it safely back to their own base.

Cartman’s team territory encompassed the land from the rec centre, through the forest surrounding it at the other side, and up to a sizeable clearing at the middle of said forest. Within this area, Kyle and Wendy would have to search for their flag, careful to avoid getting tagged by whoever was chosen as the other team’s patrols.

A whistle sounded the start of their game, and the two took off in opposite directions, plunging forward past the rec centre and into enemy territory, Wendy to the left of the forest, Kyle to the right.

It will take him about ten minutes to reach the clearing that marks the rear of their territory, and that’s usually where the flag is situated, although he’ll have to figure out it’s specific location once he gets there.

He races onward between the tall trees, bushes, and shrubs surrounding him at all sides, his eyes searching rapidly for any sign of enemy patrols. For the first couple minutes all is clear and he sees no familiar faces, with nothing but the distant wail of an unknown animal and the sound of his sneakers slapping against the earth beneath him.

Out of nowhere, he hears branches cracking in the distance, a noise indicating someone is running swiftly in his direction.

He ducks behind a nearby pine, with a trunk wide enough and needles dense enough to obscure him from view. His breath is ragged and uneven, and he covers his mouth with his hand to stifle his gasps, keeping his eyes trained in the direction of the noise.

Nichole emerges in a flash, scanning over the evergreens with a striking determination that sends chills down Kyle’s spine. If he gets tagged while in Cartman’s territory, he’s out, and he’s far too invested now to allow that to happen. Thankfully, she seems to be retreating from the area, further to Kyle’s left and well past the pine he’s cowering at the side of.

Then he hears it.

The crackling of dried pine needles, this time right behind him. Holy shit. He doesn’t stop to turn around, dodging straight past his trusty pine and bolting further into his adversaries’ domain in a zigzag pattern, hoping that will throw his attacker off. 

After a couple more minutes of sprinting like a headless chicken, the clearing at the forest centre comes into view, and he finally stops before it to take a breath, collapsing onto the dusty soil. He’s fairly certain that his face is now as red as his hair, and his head is spinning from an adrenaline overdose. There’s an intense and searing discomfort in his stomach, causing him to dry heave until he actually vomits Pringle remnants and bile all over an innocent thorn bush. He sits in silence for a few more minutes, waiting for his stamina to rebuild and wiping idly at his sweat soaked hair.  

In the distance to the left of him he can make out someone’s form walking back and forth in a fixed path surrounding a tall, skinny Ponderosa Pine, guarding it. Its height, the greatest of all the trees in the near proximity, along with the bright blue object at the very top of it causes Kyle to let out a sigh of relief.

He’s found it.

He weaves himself between the trees towards the enemy base with expert caution, keeping his breathing low and gaze focused on the individual guarding it. Before long another person comes into view, but he keeps his eyes peeled for a third or fourth.

Once he’s at an appropriate distance from the lair, he whistles a sharp three note song, similar to that of the birds in the region. There’s a slight difference to his delivery, however, which allows Wendy, who’s also meant to have reached the base, to recognize it. It takes him a couple more shots before it is whistled back to him in the same unusual song. She made it. This was his cue.

He darts forward, keeping close to the trees so as to mask himself from the guards’ view. Wendy seems to be in the midst of a flawless execution of her part of the plan, as both visible guards are inching closer in her direction, opposite Kyle, allowing him the perfect opening to the tree.

He takes it, running ahead like his life depends on this, grabbing onto the tree trunk as soon as he reaches it. The bark is jagged and the pines prickly, causing his skin to burn as he gropes at the tree’s branches for support. He manages to climb atop the lowest branch, dreading his ascent further to the top. Climbing was more Kenny’s gig, always has been, but since they didn’t foresee this outcome, they’re stuck with Kyle shitty climbing skills which can potentially cost them the entire game.

Now’s not the time for self-destructive thought processes, Kyle thinks, and scales a few branches further up the pine. For a moment, as he reaches about the tree’s midpoint, he believes all is well, that they may actually win this thanks to Cartman’s laughable recon and strategy.

“Oh no you don’t you sneaky, Jew!” he hears a shriek from below that isn’t difficult to discern as Cartman, which lights a fire under his ass.

He slings himself from branch to branch with startling speed, resolving to worry about the consequences of falling later, now solely focusing on his ascend to the top.

“Go! Go after him!” Cartman shrieks and Kyle tears his gaze away from the pine tree’s peak back down towards its roots.

“Why don’t you do it yourself, fatso?” Kyle mocks, brimming with a newfound confidence from the realization of how far he’s gotten; Cartman looks tiny and insignificant from such massive heights.

Any confidence he may have been feeling is ripped away as soon as he takes notice of the large form climbing up the pine at a rate much faster than his own.  It’s Stan, the second guard, and the last person Kyle wanted to compete with for the flag. His muscles certainly serve as an intimidating advantage, and Kyle’s finds himself thinking that maybe he shouldn’t have quit basketball junior year in favor of his studies.

Right, so not the time. He pushes himself upwards, trying his best to ignore the pure, unadulterated panic coursing through him as a result of the looming threat of falling or the utter humiliation of getting tagged last minute by Stan fucking Marsh.

The thought makes him more angry than scared actually, and he decided to voice it. “So now you’re not avoiding me?” he spits between ragged breaths.

“Wha- What?” He’s getting closer and closer to Kyle, yet somehow to Kyle this seems to be the most appropriate time for a confrontation. Maybe because Stan can’t run and hide while chasing Kyle up a tree.

“Don’t play du-dumb Stan,” he says, pulling himself onto the branch above him. “I’ve known you since you were five, I know when you’re avoiding me.”

He glances down at Stan who’s slightly closer than before, rolling his eyes at the ginger. Finally he says, “It didn’t seem to bother you the past two fucking years.”

“Ouch, okay, fair,” Kyle says, and he can make out the blue flag a couple more branches above him, so close yet so far. “I’m sorry about that, dude. I’m so sorry about that it makes me want to die, okay?” He feels a slight sense of déjà vu, but chooses to ignore it in favor of hauling himself upward.

Stan grunts a response and steps over another branch, now _way_ closer to Kyle than just moments ago.

“It’s just, dude, I-I…” Kyle breaks off, not really knowing what he wants to say.

As he’s lost in thought, Stan makes a decided grab for his ankle.

He narrowly dodges at the very last moment, sidestepping over to the branch to his right so fast that he almost slips off it. While he regains his balance, gripping onto the branch with such force that perhaps he could break it, Stan heaves himself up over the branch across Kyle’s, now level with him.

“Not cool, dude!” Kyle yells. “I’m here trying to tell you that I love you and you want to grab me? That’s so not fair!”

“Well- Wait, what did you just say?” Stan’s frozen in his place, now giving Kyle his undivided attention.

For someone who’s been complaining all day long about not receiving such attention, Kyle’s reaction is subpar. He ceases his movement as well, feeling himself go red under his friend’s scrutiny. “I- Uh, I,” he attempts. “I love you dude. Of course I love you.”

Stan remains silent and unmoving for a moment, as if waiting for Kyle to elaborate.

“You’ve been my best friend for almost my entire life. Even when we were fighting you were still my best friend. You’re my brother, man,” Kyle concludes, unable to keep a grin off his face.

“Ouch, bro-zoned,” Stan says, grinning now, too.

That last bit was kind of strange and it definitely put a queasy feeling in Kyle’s stomach; he didn’t see Stan the way he did Ike by any means, but it got his point across well enough.

Stan seems just about to bolt upwards for the flag when Kyle clears his throat. He has to get this off his chest now if there’s even the slimmest possibility that Kenny’s theories are correct.

“Also,” he says, “if I did anything last night, to like, to change things between the two of us, I’m sorry, and we should forget it.”

“Uh, what do you mean?”

“Like, if I- if I…” he trails off, turning his gaze away from Stan and towards the ground, far below his feet.

“Kyle?” He says, and he sounds worried.

“If I kissed you, I’m really-”

He glances back up at Stan, whose eyes are wide with either alarm or intrigue. Maybe both. Before Kyle can proceed with his apology, the other loses his balance, beginning his harrowing descend down the side of the Ponderosa Pine.

Without a second thought Kyle lunges forward after him, grabbing his forearm, using all the strength he can muster from his scrawny excuse for a body to pull him up onto the branch. After what feels like an eternity of struggling, Kyle manages to drag him up, and Stan falls right into him, lifeless and exhausted. Kyle leans on the tree trunk to support his weight, his face pressed up awkwardly against Stan’s chest allowing him to hear and feel the rapid beating of Stan’s heart.

Stan’s heart calms eventually, but he doesn’t move, continuing to press Kyle up against the tree with his weight. For some weird reason, Kyle doesn’t mind.

Stan says, “Now I know you mean it.”

“Huh?” Kyle says, looking up to face his better half.

“You threw a game against Cartman to save me. You know he’s gonna give you endless shit for this, and you still chose me. I’m flattered,” Stan says. His face is inches away from Kyle’s, and Kyle can discern without a shadow of a doubt that Stan feels genuinely happy. He’s got that eye-crinkling, superstar smile beaming right down at Kyle, illuminated by the warm peachy color of the setting sun, and he swears this is the happiest he’s seen Stan in years. It’s dreamlike.

“And I guess now we’re even,” Stan continues.

“What do you mean by that?”

“I sort of saved you from drowning in the lake last night,” he smiles, thoughtful for a moment as if he were trying to remember something that happened years ago rather than just hours.

“Oh,” Kyle drawls, intrigued. “That’s why we were wet.”

“Yep. It had nothing to do with-” he pauses to give Kyle a sheepish look “-kissing, or anything like- you know.”

Kyle laughs at his bashful demeanor. Stan did have a tendency to act like a jilted teenage girl at the worst of times. But right now, if Kyle’s being honest, he kind of wanted to kiss him.

Pause.

The thought is enough to make the closeness go from wonderful to worrying. He pushes Stan off himself lightly, scrambling to organize his thoughts.

_You did not just think that. That did not just happen._

Right in the nick of time, too, it seems, because as the two separate, an angry looking Cartman appears at the very bottom of the tree, peering up at them with a look of hatred, mingled with contempt.

“It’s called capture the flag, Stan, not capture the fag!” He yells from below. “While you two were making out in the tree top we already fucking won. In your face, Jew!”

 Kyle sighs, readying himself for the journey downwards. “Up yours, Cartman.”


	3. Poofs

Kyle’s slouched into the three seater couch in the once spacious rec centre, alone.

It’s silent. The setting sunlight is pouring into the room through the centre’s dusty windows, irradiating every surface with a subtle golden glow that makes Kyle feel incredibly drowsy, his eyelids leaden, head tilted lazily to the side in search for a  soft surface to lay on. The warm tranquility enveloping the atmosphere acts as a necessary sedative due to Kyle inability to recall the last time he laid down during the course of the entire trip with the intent of going to sleep. Most the rest he got was during alcohol induced blackouts, which were far too brief and far too unpleasant to constitute a proper snooze.

As he allows himself to drift, he observes the centre, which has become something out of an episode of _Hoarders_ in recent days, enriched with a variety of miscellaneous litter from around the campsite, ranging from worn out stuffed animals deformed by some sort of putrid green fungi, to an enormous swordfish plaque kept in pristine condition that Clyde attempted to mount numerous times.

Kyle’s friends have brought in these random items of furniture and others they could find in the cabins to set up in the centre, hoping to create sort of a homey, common area to hang out in. To Kyle, it only ends up looking nothing short of a cluttered mess. And despite this sizeable mess of nondescript furnishing now decorating the centre, it's completely vacant to Kyle.

His friends have been out for a couple hours at this point, initially out to take a short swim in the lake but now doing God knows what. Kyle decided not to go under the ruse of not wanting to witness Cartman’s tremendous rolls of post-weight loss flab, to which the other made sure to flip him the bird and call him a rotten kike. Nothing he isn’t used to.

In reality he’s exhausted. Drained due to the constant social interaction, not a moments peace with his own thoughts. Though his thoughts haven’t been too helpful in recent days, so it’s sort of a lose-lose situation. They’re stirring him from his long-awaited sleep at this very moment, and it’s slightly petrifying once Kyle makes the realization that the continuous communication he’s been having as of late has been rather supportive in the denial of his own emotions. Now that it’s just him and his mind, there’s nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

His mind is the rec centre, having become more and more disorderly and jumbled with needless, unwanted junk ever since the start of this god-awful trip, convoluted and confusing. And now, with nothing but the soft buzzing of unknown insects from outside the centre, Kyle can’t seem to figure out a way to subdue unrelenting thoughts of _‘Why would I think something like that?’, ‘What’s wrong with me?’_ and _‘_ _I didn’t want to kiss Stan._ _’_

He’s been attempting to drill this statement into his head the past half-hour or so, repeating it overandoverandover again so many times you’d think it to be his new life motto, always followed up by some poorly fabricated justification for wanting to do something as sick and immoral as kiss your best friend in the first place. Your _guy_ best friend.

He was just overwhelmed by finally making up with Stan, by having his first civil, unrehearsed conversation with him in the past two years. That’s it. That’s all it could’ve been.

Right?

He’s roused from his thoughts by a shirtless Kenny, his hair wet and cheeks stained red from the hot summer sun, barging into the centre and dog piling right on top of Kyle.

“Ouch!” Kyle wails as the wind is knocked out him. “What the fuck, dude?”

He shoves Kenny off of him and scoots away to the other end of the couch, far as possible, trying his best at a pissed off expression. 

The blond is undeterred, and says “Oh come on, Kyle! You can’t blame me for missing you. It’s been like ages!”

“It’s been three hours,” Kyle counters, holding his disdainful look.

 “Felt like ages. Besides, you’ve been hanging with Stan so much lately you and I barely even talk anymore,” he says, feigning solemnity for a moment before bursting into a fit of laughter and giving Kyle a suggestive wink.

“Fuck off, Kenny. It’s not true, anyway, you asshole,” he mumbles and turns to stare through the window to his left, feeling his cheeks flush pink with what he hopes is annoyance.

Kenny grins at him. “How was your day, Kyle? Have fun playing with yourself?”

“Aw, sick, dude,” he whines, his nose wrinkling at the insinuation. He punches Kenny lightly in the shoulder for emphasis, and the other lets out an exaggerated yowl. 

Soon, all of Kyle’s other classmates barge in through the rec centre’s double doors, and a misshapen circle of people forms around the three seater couch, each worn out from the day’s activities.

Stan takes a seat to the right of Kyle, leaning into him a bit due to the bizarre way the shabby old couch slumps towards the middle. He flashes him a toothy grin, entirely content with the sudden closeness unlike the ever-uncomfortable Kyle, who’s trying his hardest not to stare into the others eyes which are blue as ever in contrast to his red, sun-stained skin. Shit. Kyle turns towards Kenny.

He learns where his friends had strayed in no time; Cartman’s quick to brag about how liberating his absence was.  They had gone canoeing across the lake using some of the time-worn kayaks they dug up in the camp’s supply shack, and Kyle’s surprised none of them drowned based on how precarious and nonfunctional those appeared to him. They even looked like that two years ago, when they were meant to be in use. Just as he’s about to lecture Kenny for inciting another potential near death experience, he’s interrupted by the blond himself.

“Okay, after a long day of fucking around,” he starts, giving the group a serious look, “who’s up for some more fucking around?”

He barks a laugh, raising the bottle of bear he was nursing in the air. Kyle rolls his eyes.

“Jesus Christ,” he mumbles. Classic Kenny.

“Hell, yeah,” Cartman hollers, loudest among the chorus of affirmative responses emanating from his group of friends. Including Stan, which is rather disappointing. The only one that looks uninterested, other than Kyle, is Craig but that’s just his constant state of being, so it seems Kyle’s on his own once again. He tries a couple of times to convince Kenny to allow him to sit out whatever he plans on doing, but with the kid’s persistence it’s no dice.

“Truth or dare,” Kenny states, eliciting a few cheers and hoots out of his circle of friends.

“And, I’m out,” Kyle announces.

He fucking hates this game. He’s hated it since Stan’s clubhouse incident in third grade and all throughout high school. It’s just an excuse for horny teenagers to hook up with no strings attached and no pressure of having to act off your own free will and face the consequences. But just as he lifts himself off the couch to go, Kenny pulls him right back down again.

“No can do, buddy. You already bailed on me once today. You’re not doing it again,” he says, and it’s decided. Kyle’s sticking around for this. He grabs the beer bottle out Kenny’s hand, taking a swig. This is going to be a long game.

 

 

“So Bebe, truth or dare?”

Kyle is unsure of how many questions have been asked since the start of the game, becoming so disinterested his awareness for the passage of time seems to have faded. Call him a douche, but he genuinely doesn’t care if Bebe and Red hooked up or if there is at least the teensiest of chances for Wendy to ever properly date Cartman. Most his friends eat this shit up, though he swears off complaining, not because he doesn’t want to spoil their fun, but more so because it can be considered a blessing that he has gone this long without being landed on by the Pabst Blue Ribbon bottle of doom.

“You’ve always been a Debbie Downer, huh,” Stan says as though he’s made the most hard-hitting of observations.

Kyle’s startled at the attention, but counters quickly.

“Debbie Downer? Are we in a 50s teen flick now? ‘Cos if so, feel free to eat my shorts, daddy-o,” Kyle says with hesitance; the words sound so awkward as he says them he can’t help but cringe.

Stan gives him a grin, followed by a curios look. “Daddy-o,” he echoes.

Cringe. Kyle hides his face in his hands, humiliated. “I regretted the words as soon as they left my mouth, trust me.”

The embarrassing display earns a full-blown laugh from Stan. “Isn’t ‘eat my shorts’ a Simpsons thing, anyway?” he continues. “That would make it like the 90s, earliest. Maybe late 80s.”

“Well, it was originally said by Bender in the Breakfast Club, so that’s around mid-1980s. Though, since it’s a derivative of ‘eat my shit’ it probably goes back as far as the 50s,” Kyle explains, face still in his hands. His unrestrained geekiness scared him at times, and certainly put off most the girls he’s ever liked, as well.

Stan laughs, and the two continue their conversation about useless 80s pop culture trivia as if it’s the most natural thing. Soon, they switch to the topic of music, and of course Stan details why he prefers Pink Floyd’s _The Wall_ to _Animals_ (for the millionth time since he's heard it), with Kyle often interjecting to note the meaning and concept of the album because of Stan’s undying tendency to judge purely off sound. Normally, he wouldn’t waste his breath trying to explain why capitalism is bullshit and how _Animals_ reflects that, but at the moment Kyle feels as though talking with Stan could make the most banal topics seem profound and enlightening, and even if he were talking about cat grooming he could probably go on for years and years while remaining giddy with delight. Their conversations are as natural as water flowing.

Is that strange?

“ _The Wall_ is more about isolation, so it’s more personal I guess,” Kyle notes.

Stan smiles. “You’re such a fucking nerd, Kyle,” he says, clapping Kyle on the back.

“Nice to know the sentiment is shared,” Kyle responds with a grin on his face, finally removing his face from his hands to look over at his friend.

Stan has a fond look in his eyes, and Kyle can’t help but admire how much the other seems to make all his friends feel appreciated and cared for with such a look. It makes Kyle forget about their fight completely.

“I like you like that, though,” Stan says after a moment, and Kyle bursts into flames. He can feel the heat bubbling in his beat red cheeks, trying his hardest to will it away but to no avail. 

He whips his head to face Kenny on his left, only to find the other staring at him eagerly, the rest of his circle of friends mimicking his expression. Kyle glances at the bottle in the centre of the room to make sure the worst possible thing hasn’t happened yet. It has. The neck of the bottle is directed straight towards him, an aimed barrel of a gun.

 “Fuck yeah! Finally,” Kenny exclaims. “Okay, Kyle, your time has come. Truth or dare?”

“…Neither?”

“Sorry, dude, but that’s not an option,” Kenny says.

“Come on, Kyle, do something willingly for once?” Bebe suggests, far too excited.

“She’s right, you should play. You’re worse than Craig when it comes to shit like this,” Clyde adds, only to receive a loving middle finger from his best friend.

“Guys, I-”

“You don’t have to be such a pussy-buzzkill all the time, you know? It’s high time you removed your trusty stick out your ass,” Cartman whines, and Kyle gives him the most hateful look he can muster up.

“Whatever, fatass.” Kyle can’t be bothered to argue, and Cartman’s kind of right. He’s always been far too uptight when it came to these sorts of things. Because they’re stupid and pointless in his eyes.

“Truth or dare, Kyle. Tick, tock. We don’t have all night,” Kenny presses on, breaking the tension between the other two.

“Um, I- Uh. Truth?” Kyle says, resulting in a collective sigh from the majority of his friend group.

“Predictable,” Bebe voices.

 “Rules are rules,” Kenny says, pausing to ponder which question he should ask. After a few moments of focused thought, he throws his hands up in the air as a sign of defeat. “What could I possibly ask you that I don’t already know?”

Kyle sighs, giving Kenny a small smile. “It’s cool you think you know me that well.”

Kenny looks taken aback. “Are you suggesting that I don’t?”

“I- Uh, no. I’m not,” Kyle mumbles, caught off guard.

Kenny eyes him suspiciously, leaning in so as to inspect his features for anything that may imply he’s withholding the truth, a single averted gaze or twitch of the eye. This causes Kyle to inch closer to Stan, who is fully disinterested in the game, taking part in a conversation with Token and Red that Kyle wishes so badly he could be part of right about now.

“Now, isn’t the time for a lovers’ spat, excuse me,” Cartman interjects.

“Okay, okay. Let’s see,” Kenny says, delving back into deep thought, putting his index finger to his lips for emphasis.

“Kyle’s never like anyone, right? I mean as far as we know,” Wendy suggests. “Maybe ask about that.”

“ _Like_? What is this, grade school?” Clyde jokes, evoking a collective eye roll from his group of friends.

“Well, it’s Kyle. He hasn’t fucked anyone. Hell, we can’t even be sure that he’s kissed anyone,” Cartman comments, and Kyle doesn’t know whether he wants to knock him out or to be swallowed whole by the earth beneath him.

“Fuck you, Cartman,” he dismisses. “Just fucking get it over with already. Please.”

“Now that you mention, I don’t remember you ever telling me about a crush. Ever, in high school. I’m slightly offended, I’ve got to say,” Kenny remarks. “So, Kyle, which of the sweet little girls we went to elementary school with do you now find the most fuckable?”

There’s a tense silence from the friend group for a moment, followed by most the girls rolling their eyes at the question, but paying closer attention to the game then seconds ago, still curious about the answer.

“Ugh, dude, Kenny, could you make yourself sound like more of a pedophile. Seriously,” Kyle says, disturbed.

“I have to agree with the Jew on that one, sick,” Cartman adds, scrunching up his face with disgust.

Kenny laughs in response. “What fun is a game of truth or dare if you don’t make people uncomfortable with the questions you ask? It’s an effective method in getting them to stop being pussies and start choosing dare,” he explains. “Now Kyle, answer time.”

“Um,” Kyle starts. It’s not like this is something he hasn’t thought about relentlessly for about the first two years of high school when his hormones were doing their worst, leaving him with a pimply face and the desire to sex anything female that walks. It didn’t escape him that Bebe’s cherry red lips were just plump enough to make the perfect DSLs, and that Wendy’s jet-black hair seemed as soft and smooth as actual silk, but Kyle knew not to dwell on these thoughts when he first started having them because it felt far too similar to thinking about your sister in a sexual context considering how long he’s known these girls. The only one this didn’t apply to was Nichole as she came a while later and Kyle actually had a crush on her at one point. So, he goes with that.

“Nichole?” Kenny echoes after Kyle’s response. “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised.”

Most his other friends gratify his response with an ooh or an ah, but are now back to having their own conversations, not moved by his answer in the slightest, which he’s kind of underwhelmed yet thankful for. Nichole’s giving Kyle a small smile, her cheeks tinted red from either alcohol or Kyle’s admission. He supposes it’s the former, but decides to try talking to her later nonetheless.

He finally strikes up a conversation with her about fifteen minutes later, after growing bored of witnessing Kenny execute the most ridiculous dares including making out with a good portion of their friend group and doing an exaggeratedly sexual striptease to _I Feel It Coming_. 

Kyle considers the song ruined now, which he voices to Nichole causing her to chuckle in agreement. Her laugh is soft but genuine and overall pleasant to hear, and when she smiles her entire face lights up in a way that would cause anyone’s heart to swell with momentary adoration. Sure, their conversations may not be half as intriguing or as comfortable as his talks with Stan, but Kyle does feel somewhat of a childlike giddiness when talking to her, and that’s enough to convince him that he’s not a total fruitcake. Then again, that feeling may just be his general restlessness over social interaction or the booze getting the better of him- but probably not because he’s liked Nichole before, who’s to say he can’t do it again?

“So, I hear you’re going to Stanford for college,” Nichole says. The two are now separated from the rest of their friends at the far end of the rec centre, sitting at the edge of the wide podium with their legs dangling off it.

“Uh, yeah. Managed to get a scholarship,” Kyle replies. College isn’t exactly something he’s looking forward to, but leaving South Park sounds fucking wonderful.

“Impressive, but also not surprising in the slightest,” Nichole remarks.

Kyle grins. He contemplates feigning humility for a moment, before deciding against it; he’s pretty sure everyone already knows him to be an arrogant douche. “I hope it’s not,” he says, “I had to bust my balls all throughout high school for that scholarship. God knows how many hours I’ve wasted learning about shit I don’t care about just for that.”

“I can definitely relate. I mean, I don’t know how memorizing the stages of DNA transcription and translation is relevant to my career in law, but I sure had a hell of a lot of fun learning about them,” Nichole says sarcastically, smiling.

“Where are you going for college?” Kyle asks. He doesn’t particularly care, but she showed an interest so asking is the least he can do.

“Penn State. It’s pretty far, but the farther from South Park the better I believe,” she says, and Kyle laughs. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love my friends, but that place is fucking terrible.”

“Agreed. One hundred percent.”

They talk for a while longer, and little by little Kyle’s starting to feel normal again. The notion that the mental gymnastics he’s been doing since the start of the trip are simply a result of his constant thought of the fight has become quite convincing. All he needed was to talk to someone cute of the opposite sex and all his worries dissipated. What a goddamn relief.

“Kyle!” Kenny interrupts from across the room, making his way towards the podium.

Kyle turns his head to look at the blond as he swaggers towards them, a mischievous smirk plastered on his freckled face.  He stops directly in front of Kyle, looking down at him with that same suspicious smile. He stands there for a moment, unmoving, as if waiting for his cue to speak or act.

Both Nichole and Kyle wait silently for an explanation, peering up at him with a sort of wary curiosity.

“Kenny, what-” Kyle starts after a few moments of quiet, only to be cut off by Kenny.

“I need to kiss you, dude.”

Kyle’s tongue tied. He must’ve misheard. “What was that, Ken?”

“Don’t freak out, Kyle. It’s a dare. Let’s just get this over with, and we’ll never have to look back on it ever again,” Kenny says with a laugh, casual as ever.

“You’re still playing that stupid game?” Kyle squeaks, and Kenny nods.

You’re kidding. You’re fucking kidding. Kyle’s finally back to his good old, straight self and this happens. He’s left the world of fairies behind only to be pulled back in, and he’s about to have a conniption.

“There’s no way, man. No fucking way,” he says.

Nichole gives an uncomfortable laugh, followed by a sympathetic look directed at Kyle.

“Oh, come on, dude, don’t be a homophobe. It’s just a kiss. On a dare. It doesn’t make you gay.”

“It’s not about the gay thing. It’s about principle. I wasn’t even part of the fucking game,” he protests, but he knows it’s a lie. A blatant lie. He’s not about to allow himself to be flipped by his far too promiscuous best friend.

“I mean, if he’s uncomfortable with it, maybe we should let him sit this one out,” Nichole finally intervenes.

“No can do,” Cartman says, strutting towards them. “This Jew has already sat out enough dares in his lifetime. Time to man up, princess.”

“By kissing another guy?”

“For your standards, that can be considered manly, yes.”

“Fuck you, fatso. Why are you even getting involved?”

“I set the dare, obviously.”

“Why am I not surprised? You would be one to get off on watching two guys suck face.”

Cartman huffs. “Stop stalling, Kyle. You’ll have to do it.”

“Why is that?”

“To prove you’re not a pussy, like we all know you are. You know you’re dying to.”

There’s a heavy silence throughout the rec centre, and all eyes are on the two of them.

This is insane, Kyle thinks. People- his friends think he’s going to go for this. Sure, he’s always been an impulsive, temperamental fuck, easily provoked by Cartman despite not wanting to admit it, but this is way too far. Even in this suffocating room, surrounded by his judgmental peers and their scrutinizing gazes coercing him to act against his will, Kyle’s aware that he doesn’t need to prove himself. To Cartman, or to anyone.

Which doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to.

“Fine,” he says finally, and this time the gasps and hums from his friends are genuine. “But first, can you think of any alternatives? Anything else you want me to do? Anything?”

He’s grasping at straws here, and he knows it. Everyone does.

“Nope, you’re kissing Kenny. Get over it. You might hurt his poor feelings,” Cartman says, and Kyle knows he cares fuck all about Kenny’s feelings. Still, he gives Kenny an apologetic look and the other snickers in response.

“Cartman. I’m serious, anything.”

Cartman eyes him with a look of intrigue, silent for what feels like eternity. Kyle’s ecstatic. He’s considering it.

His dreams are shattered when Cartman’s boyish features are graced with the foulest of grins, all his evil culminated into an innocent-seeming smile. “I’m out of Cheesy Poofs,” he drawls.

Kyle blinks, clueless. “I- What?”

“I’m out of Cheesy Poofs. I need you to go get some for me. You can take Kenny with you, since it’s his dare after all,” he explains simply.

“Cartman, what the fuck are you saying? There’s no convenience store for miles from here. And it’s like nine.” Kyle’s trying to make sense of his proposal, gathering that Cartman likely wants him and Kenny on a wild goose chase for a convenience store in the pitch-black nighttime. He must be hoping for the two to get mauled by a wild grizzly bear or something.

“So, go find one. Or, you could always check if our neighbors have some,” Cartman suggests, evil smile still plastered across his face.

“Neighbors?”

“You mean the people living across the lake?” Kenny interjects, wary but intrigued.

“Why, yes, Kenneth. Those neighbors.”

“Pretty sure those houses are empty vacation homes. There’s no one to borrow from. And even if there was, it’s a bit dangerous to go out asking random strangers for food at night, in the middle of nowhere,” Nichole points out.

“Oh well. Guess Kyle’s just going to have to submit to my will and smooch Kenny, then,” Cartman announces happily.

“I’ll do it. I’ll find your fucking junk food,” Kyle states. His impulsivity may have gotten the better off him, but it’s for good reason. A matter of principle.

Cartman cocks an eyebrow, surprised. “Oh? You will?” he questions. “Well, good luck to you both, then.” He gives a lame salute, seeming endlessly pleased with himself.

Kenny’s unsure at first, but Kyle manages to convince him with a reminder of his uncanny ability to escape death in the past. The situation is disconcerting for Nichole as well, and Kyle soothes her with the idea that the likelihood of the two being gunned down by some psychotic hillbilly is very, very low. They let their other friends know what they’re up to and where they’re headed, as some of the group was just out of earshot when the discussion was going down. Most his friends react as he expects them to, worried and overly cautious, while Clyde claps him on the back, proud to send him off on his merry way.

“I’ll go with you guys,” Stan announces just as the two are about to set off. He smiles at Kyle as if he’s just volunteered to take part in some is lighthearted, innocent fun, as if this is just a normal, everyday occurrence. His offer and demeanor is reassuring, and Kyle knows that if anything were to happen, having another person along would increase their chances of escaping unharmed, but he doesn’t want Stan to get hurt.

“Better not. If too many people go, we’re more likely to get caught,” he says, and it’s no lie.

Stan’s still grinning like this all is no big deal, but he gives Kyle a cautious look that seems almost pleading. He can tell Stan thinks this is a bullshit idea, and the least he can do is let him join the shit show.

“Uh, yeah. Come along, then,” Kyle relents.

The three take one of the small wooden boats washed up along the lake near the dock, barely large enough to fit all three of them while remaining afloat. Being that it’s quite old and outdated, the boat’s missing a motor, leaving Kyle, Kenny and Stan to do the rowing themselves, a duty delegated primarily to Stan and Kenny while Kyle navigates the water. This is a bogus responsibility and Kyle knows it, seeing as the lake is as clear and calm as ever, without a so much as a wave or a ripple in sight. Kyle assumes the two concluded that the fastest way to get this whole debacle over and done with is to have the two stronger individuals row the boat, and they didn’t want to fuel the fire already burning under Kyle’s ass. He’s offended at the resolve but refuses to put up a fight, aware of how irrational he’s already behaving, feeling inebriated enough to flip over the boat if he ever were to row it.

The three travel in silence for about the first five minutes on the lake, and at about the halfway point Kenny breaks the quiet with a deep, irritated sigh. Kyle gives him a look to clarify that he’s not in a mood for conversation, but the other proceeds with his complaint.

“I should’ve just kissed you. Right on the spot. Laid a saucy little smooch on you right there and then,” Kenny laments with an exaggerated huff, smacking the surface of the lake with his paddle for emphasis.

“That would be considered assault, which is illegal,” Kyle points out.

Kenny stresses an eyeroll towards Kyle, as though the reason for his frustration should be blatantly obvious, while at the rear of their pathetic excuse for a boat, Stan laughs the driest, dullest of laughs Kyle’s heard. “What we’re about to do is trespassing, which is also illegal,” he says.

“I don’t see why you guys are complaining all of a sudden. This isn’t any crazier than most the shit we’ve done, and Kenny you’re usually the main advocate for that crazy bullshit.”

“Kyle. I seriously can’t believe you’re missing the point,” Stan says.

Kyle’s baffled at their disappointment, and eyes the both with the most incredulous gaze he can muster. “Oh, come on. You can’t actually be mad that I refused to kiss Kenny.”

“Nope. You’re right, that’s not what confuses me, it’s more so the fact that you’d go to such great lengths just to avoid kissing someone in fucking truth or dare,” Kenny explains. "I get that you're sensitive about seeming gay, but come on-"

"I- What? It's has nothing to do with gayness. At all!"

“Look, dude, it's just that this all seems a bit excessive just to avoid kissing a dude,” Stan says.

“And homophobic. Sort of Cartman-esque,” Kenny adds, unable to resist the habit of cracking a joke at the worst of times. It’s a good one, as well, but the comparison of Kyle to that racist tub of lard is enough to unsettle him.

"Because I don't want to kiss someone? It doesn't matter that Kenny's a guy, I just shouldn't have to do it."

"In a game of truth or dare? That's how it fucking works!" Stan says, exasperated. "You could've just told Cartman to fuck off if you're that put off."

"No, it's Cartman. He doesn't let shit like this go."

"He doesn't let anything go. What makes this any different?"

Kyle’s silent for a moment, for the first time reflecting on his course of action. He’s always had a penchant for allowing his temper to get the better of him and blowing things way out of proportion, especially when related to Cartman, but more often than not he’s had a strong sense of self-awareness surrounding his actions, or at least he liked to think so. He isn't too sure anymore. 

Whatever. Everything is fine. Completely normal. He’s just tipsy. That’s the cause. It is. It must be. 

Kenny and Stan stare at him expectantly, and he tries his best with an apology. “Look, guys, I didn’t mean to come off as a douche, I just- it’s more of a matter of principle, okay?”

“What principle is that? ‘I’m not a fag?’” Kenny questions.

“No. Again, it's not about that! I’m just fucking tired of being dicked around by Cartman; that’s it, that’s all,” he says, lying. Lying though his fucking teeth. “It’s like the instant he wants to humiliate me in front of my friends, he can just order me around to do it for him. I wasn’t even part of the fucking game and he dragged me in and now I’m bound to obeying the sanctity of his stupid dare.”

The lie seems convincing to even Kyle himself, and it’s kind of disconcerting that he can come up with such bogus tale of woe in simply a matter of minutes. Maybe his mother’s right after all, he could have a prosperous career as a lawyer with his impressive bullshitting skills. It does sting a little having to lie to his two best friends this way, but Kyle’s certain they’d read into things if he told them the truth and he’s unsure of what the whole truth is, himself.

Kenny contemplates Kyle’s tearjerker, hesitantly starting to nod in understanding. Stan, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to be buying it. “You could’ve just said no. No one would’ve judged you for it,” he says.

“It’s Cartman. I never know how. Both of you are well aware of that.”

“He’s still technically jerking you around by getting us to run his errands,” Stan continues.

“Yeah, but this isn’t half as humiliating. It’s also not his primary wish, and as long as I’m not fulfilling that, I’m good,” Kyle states, and Stan sighs a response.

“Whatever. Let’s just get this over with,” he says as they near the shoreline at the other end of the lake, preparing to exit the boat.

Perfect timing.

The three leave the boat docked on the shore, trudging towards the large vacation homes barely visible through the thick clusters of pine trees. It takes a couple minutes of walking in cautious silence for the first building to come fully into view. There are a couple across the grounds that they’re aware of, but there’s a sizeable distance of thicket and field between them, each surrounded at all sides with an intimidating fence or wall. Fortunately, the very first house seems to be vacant for the summer, with most the shutters lowered over the windows, all its lights turned off.

“We should try that one, just get it over with,” Kyle suggests, scrutinizing the house. The three are now hidden behind some of the large pines near the front of the house, discussing their plan of action. “Seems safe enough since there’s no one inside.”

Kenny laughs miserably at this comment. “Safe enough,” he repeats, covering his forehead with the back of his hand in mock-horror. “My dear Kyle, my baby, what has become of you?”

“Kenny, quiet,” Stan warns, whispering.

Kenny wraps his arm around Kyle in response, face buried in his shoulder to muffle his pathetic wails. “You used to be so cautious. So caring. So… motherly.”

Kyle swats him away at the comment, but doesn’t rebuttal, no matter his unrelenting need to do so. Now is not the time. This has to be done.

“Guys, I need conformation? You’re alright with this one?” he questions, turning away from the house to face the other two.

For someone who’s in a situation that could potentially leave him injured, incarcerated, or even dead, Kenny seems all too content with the world, that dopey shit-eating grin he’s well-known for sporting plastered across his face. He’s slouched against the trunk of one of the trees they’re concealed behind, picking at the hangnails on the tips of his long, thin fingers. He doesn’t have a care in the world, something Kyle’s always envied him for, and he’s been certain for a while now that Kenny gets off on doing dangerous shit like this, something that’s bound to send him to an early grave. Or graves.

Stan is a whole other story. He’s standing straight as a ramrod, staring at Kyle with such intensity it’s as if he believes that if he looks away even for the briefest moment, Kyle will disappear into thin air. His gaze may be forceful and decided, but if Kyle knows anything about Stan, its’s that in truth he’s scared shitless right now. For as long as Kyle can remember, Stan has been a massive pussy in harrowing and unpredictable situations similar to this one, but somehow, he’s always been able to overcome that fear to face it head on, with impressive leadership and composure. Kyle supposed this made him the bravest out of all of them.

“I don’t know about this one,” Stan said. “What if the occupants are just asleep, or out for the night? If they catch us breaking in, all hell could break lose.”

Kyle considers this. “Maybe we should just walk to another and check for anyone we can talk to,” he suggests.

“And say what? We’re so sorry to startle you like this at ten o’ clock in the nighttime, but we have a medical emergency. Our fatass friend is craving Cheesy Poofs,” Kenny mocks. “Nope, we’ll do this one. I can’t be bothered to walk for any longer.”

“But what if-”

“Stan, enough with the paranoid suggestions, you sound like Tweek for fuck’s sake. Chillax,” Kenny says, walking past the trees and directly towards the house.

Stan and Kyle share a cautious look before following after the blond, and Kyle can’t keep the corners of his lips from twitching into a fond smile. If they were to die now, at least he’d go down with his two favorite people.

They round the premises in search for the easiest point of entry, which isn’t the simplest of tasks seeing as the property is surrounded at all sides by an intimidating, gothic style fence with pointed spikes outlining the tips for this very reason. They eventually manage to find an area close to the garage of the house that’s lower than the rest of the fence and thus concealed by a thick veiling of some kind of vine, safer to climb than the rest.

As he takes note of the garage, the fence, and other such features, Kyle gains the sneaking suspicion that the house may be for permanent residency after all, and not just a vacation lake house. It seems far too different in structure and layout to be comparable to the ones Kyle has seen. He proceeds to scale the fence nonetheless, followed by Kenny and Stan.

They reach a porch at the back of the house with a sliding glass door leading straight into it, suspiciously only semi-covered by the drapes from the inside, no shutters covering it whatsoever.

“That doesn’t look good. At all,” Kyle whispers, looking between Stan and Kenny who seems equally as perturbed. “Maybe we should head back, just in case.”

Stan is about to agree, only to be cut off by Kenny. “No can do, babe. We didn’t come all this way to chicken out. Plus, it’s my dare,” Kenny states, convinced that he has nothing to lose.

“But it’s not worth being arrested for,” Kyle argues, knowing his mother would have his head for anything of the sort.

“You didn’t seem to agree when you agreed to do this in the first place.”

That shuts him up on the matter so he proceeds to question Kenny on the ideal method of breaking and entering in these circumstances, panicking inwardly as the severity of the situation finally sets in. Kenny responds with a wicked smirk, walking away from Kyle and Stan, down the porch and into the backyard of the house, scanning the ground in search of something. He reaches for one of the larger decorative rocks at the edge of their garden, flipping it over in his palm to inspect it. A grim thought pops into Kyle’s mind, and he can’t help but hiss “Kenny! Please don’t tell me you want to do what I think you want to do.”

Kenny looks up from the rock, staring at him with a dead-serious expression before breaking into fit of giggles. Giggles. Fucking Kenny.

“Chill, dude. I’m only searching for an extra key. Rich families like these tend to have them in these fucking places,” he explains.

“Why do you know this?” Stan asks.

Kenny winks at the question, then ducks back down to search for this extra key.

“Stan, try jiggling the knob a bit, it can help if need to pick the lock or something,” he whispers, and Stan does as he’s told, grabbing at the handle of the sliding door, which seems to lock from the inside but they’re desperate to try anything at this point.

And just like that, the door slides open.

Kyle’s dumbfounded and a little bit terrified; he can feel a surge of genuine anxiety rip right through him as he watches the door skate into place, leaving their entrance into the house open and unguarded, unveiling the inside of pitch black darkness for them to peer into.

“What the fuck?” Stan says;he jumps back from the door as if he’s just been bitten.

“Oh my God. Jesus Christ. This was a fucking horrible idea. We need to bolt,” Kyle blurts out, inching ever so slightly to Stan's side.

He looks to Kenny, who shrugs at the occurrence. “This is beneficial to us, if you ask me,” he says.

“How the fuck?”

“Well, we could already guess there were people inside, this just makes it easier for us to get in, get the Poofs, get out.”

Stan and Kyle look at each other, sharing one of their bizarre discussions made up of knowing glances, a skill they perfected growing up surrounded by a myriad of peculiar individuals. Although, it’s not difficult to decipher the expression on Stan’s face at moment, a look of pure alarm and confusion that Kyle’s certain he shares.

“Get in. Get the Cheesy Poofs. Get out,” Kenny repeats. “Come on, guys, you with me?”

Kyle sighs. He has to do this. They are so close. “Let’s go,” he says, and dips into through the house’s backdoor.

He emerges in what he concludes is the living room, but his surroundings are far too obscured by the thick veil of darkness for him to be sure. The inside is wide and spacious, and he can make out an arm chair and bookshelf at one end of the room, a large couch at the other, illuminated only by the soft streaks of pale moonlight spilling in through cracks in the window curtains. This should mean that the kitchen is close, and he’s only a few steps away from stealing some fucking Cheesy Poofs and getting the hell out of there.

Kenny and Stan follow in after him, and soon all three of them are grazing their hands along the walls of the house, grasping for any sign of a light switch to ease their mission. The darkness is so overwhelming that Kyle feels as though some vicious, grotesque beast is lurking in the shadows, waiting to pounce at him when he’s at his most vulnerable, ripping him to tiny, insignificant shreds.  He carries on walking through the house, and his anxiety starts to grow even further as he imagines the callused, boney hands of unknown individuals groping at him from all sides through the sea of utter blackness. The thought makes him stop in his tracks, only to realize that he’s made it to the kitchen.

He can discern a smooth counter top directly to the right of him, above which there are rows of cabinets for him to rummage through in search of those damn Cheesy Poofs. It may be a tedious task, but Kyle’s relieved to know that he’ll soon be done with this.

Kenny and Stan manage to join him and by some miracle, Stan is able to locate a light switch, which upon lighting up the area sends a wave of relief over each three of the boys. They dig through the contents of the cabinets together, and the third one they search is full of the exact brand of crappy junk food they’re in search of. Fucking Cheesy Poofs.

Kyle’s over the moon. He shuts his eyes, which are still adjusting to the abruptness of the light, leaning over the counter top in pure joy and disbelief. He lets out a sigh of relief and contentment, as though all his anxieties have been released all at once, feeling accomplished and joyous enough to kiss someone. Well, maybe he wouldn’t go that far, but…

“Shit,” he hears Kenny say.

“I know, right. We got so lucky, dude, it’s insane,” he responds, laughing breathily.

“Kyle.”

He opens his eyes. A little fair-haired girl in pink pajamas is staring him dead in the eyes, expressionless.

A feeling of fear bolts through his entire body like nothing he’s ever felt before, as though his heart is being torn violently in two. It’s silent. He looks to Stan, then to Kenny, then to the girl, whose expression remains unchanged. For a brief moment, it seems as though everything is under control, calm and collected enough to be dealt with without hysterics.

Then she screams.

She screams the shrillest, most ear-piercing scream Kyle’s ever heard, akin to the wail of a dying animal, torturous and vile, and Kyle’s unsure of how this young, innocent child could produce such an awful sound.

He races out of the kitchen of the house without casting so much as a glance backwards, down the hallway, back into the living room and through the sliding glass door, Kenny and Stan in tow. In the commotion, he realizes he hasn’t even grabbed a Cheesy Poofs bag, but suffice it to say that now he cares fuckall about the goddamn snack, hearing loud, intimidating footsteps scrambling down the stairs of the house at an alarming speed. 

He bounds out the backdoor, straight towards their entry point, clambering over it with as much speed as possible to allow Kenny and Stan to climb over after him. In the process of his ascend up the jagged fence, he earns a fair number of jabs on his palms and thighs from the sharp spikes protruding at the very tips, but the massive amounts of adrenaline coursing through his body help numb the pain.

As soon as his feet hit the earth he speeds off into the pine forest in the direction of the lake, finally glancing back to check on the well-being of his two best friends, both of whom are now running into the forest after him. Right in the nick of time, too, as Kyle soon hears the belligerent hollering of an unidentified man, which makes him want to piss his fucking pants.

After over five minutes of running, the three reach the lake and Kyle feels as though his lungs are about to explode at any given second. Nevertheless, he doesn’t stop, none of them do, instead hopping right away into their boat which at this point seems about as good as any five-star cruise ship, if not better. They row and row relentlessly despite their exhaustion, not daring to glance back at the other side of the lake a single time.

The journey back to camp is endless and excruciating. When they finally do reach the shore, all three of the boys sprawl out on the dusty ground, chests heaving in unison as they attempt to somehow regain their composure. After about ten minutes of silent gazing at the night sky, Kenny bursts out in a fit of uncontrollable laughter. 

“We didn’t even get the fucking Cheesy Poofs,” he says, wiping the laughter-induced tears from his eyes. “Fucking amazing.”

Stan chuckles a little, and soon all three are laying on the filthy ground of the shore, dying of laughter.

“I can’t believe this,” Kyle says. “I can’t believe this was all for fucking nothing.”

“Well, it wasn’t completely useless,” Stan points out.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I’m hoping you’ve learned a powerful lesson on the consequences of being a homophobic douche,” Stan jokes, turning from the sky to smirk at Kyle.

Kenny stresses a laugh in response, and Kyle eyes him warily.

“Does this mean that I still have to kiss you, then?” he asks.

“If I know Cartman, then hell yeah it does,” Kenny says, and with a smile on his face he sits up, scoots closer Kyle, and leans back down again, connecting their lips together.

Resist. That’s the first thought to cross Kyle’s mind as he’s pinned against the earth, all the adrenaline incited by their attempted burglary rushing back to him, willing him to move his limbs in an effort to push Kenny away. He feels helpless once again, but this time to the gushing wave of warmth bubbling at the very pit of his stomach, threatening to reveal something that he’s most definitely not ready to confront.

Kenny isn’t fazed by this in the slightest, remaining firmly situated on top of Kyle, moving his lips against Kyle’s with such intensity and fervor that it makes Kyle’s whole world spin beyond his control. He laces his fingers between Kyle's wild, flaming curls, tilting his head a bit to allow more closeness. More contact. The exact thing Kyle wants. His heart is swelling within his chest, and he feels an excitement and eagerness that he’s certain he’s never felt with previous kisses, causing him to respond to Kenny and grab onto him for dear life. Kenny slips his tongue in between Kyle's lips, and without thinking he parts them for him. He tells himself that it’s because if he didn’t allow this to happen, Kenny and Cartman would hound him about it forever- this is his only escape. But Cartman's not even here to witness this.

What a terrible lie.

The warmth is suddenly ripped away from Kyle and he bolts upwards, startled. He’s met with a look of confusion and disappointment from none other than Stan, who seems to have witnessed the entire occurrence. Any pleasure he may have been feeling is replaced by immediate dread once Kyle makes this realization, being that disappointing Stan is the last thing he ever wants to do.

Stan’s restrained Kenny, gripping him by the shoulder and away from Kyle.

Kyle can feel how ridiculous he looks under Stan’s scrutinizing gaze, his lips are no doubt swollen and red, his cheeks stained with a deep blush, red hair disheveled and unkempt. To diffuse the tension, he makes a lousy attempt at a smile.

“Well, you got what you fucking wanted, guys,” he jokes, trying to sound composed.

Kenny laughs, but Stan seems… concerned?

“You do realize,” Kenny starts, “that we’re going to have to repeat that for the big guy once we’re back inside, right? There’s no way he’ll believe us.”

Kyle nods, starting the walk back to the rec centre. He can’t say he’s too upset about it, either.


	4. Hoverfly

Kyle's lying flat on his back, staring at the cabin ceiling and trying to make sense of the whirlwind of thoughts laying waste to his brain. He's unsure of whether to cry, scream or pull all his hair out, and this recent frenzy of agitation has given him a newfound empathy for Tweek Tweak, who no doubt deals with this type of bullshit on a daily basis.

Suffice it to say, the previous night was strange. 

Huh, 'strange'. That may be an understatement, even for South Park standards. Couple a pathetic and unnecessary attempted robbery with yet another near death experience, then sprinkle it with not one, but two bizarre and frankly disturbing displays of homo-eroticism, and voila! You've got yourself some delicious 'please let's pretend this never happened' pie. One of Cartman's favorites. 

First off, Kyle is not gay. Nope. No way.

  
He's been attracted to girls in the past. He's had his fair share of crushes, and his recent interactions with Nichole are enough to make his heart race. So why the hell was that kiss with Kenny so goddamn enjoyable? Thinking back on it makes Kyle want to gouge his eyes out and stuff them down his windpipe until he suffocates.  
In his mind, much like the idea of Cartman losing a considerable amount of his enormous flab, the thought of himself actually being gay is impossible. Though, Cartman has, albeit following a major tragedy, managed to lose a hefty portion of his tremendous rolls, so isn't anything possible?

  
But how could Kyle, the 'perfect' son and the most average, plain and boring kid in South Park ever fall into the faction of today's most controversial and socially conspicuous people? It makes no sense, and would present a complete anomaly to his character. The majority of South Park, a town filled with the most simple-minded individuals, would never be able to comprehend this. Maybe not even his family or his friends. That may seem as though Kyle's jumping to the worst case scenario right off the bat, not giving his family and closest friends any credit, but honestly what can he expect? It's better to set his expectations low now to avoid any potential emotionally crippling disappointment in future.

  
Not to mention that a tiny redneck mountain town like South Park is most likely to respond to even the smallest shred of gayness in one of too ways. The first, like any lil' old rural American town, would be to ostracize gay people as a result of their ignorant and negative perception of homosexuality, based on stereotypes like gays being overly perverse, or even pedophiles simply because of their sexuality. As was the case with Big Gay Al and the Mountain Scouts, if Kyle remembers correctly. The other would be to parade gays around on some sort of sick pedestal as a means of creating a superficially progressive image of the town, which is what happened with Tweek and Craig. Kyle doesn't know which is worse.

  
Well, it's not as though matters considering he's not going to come out anytime soon. Or ever.

Because he's not gay.

  
Maybe just a little... bi-curious?

And on top of the newly discovered mystery that is Kyle's sexuality, this entire fucked up ordeal opened a whole other can of worms in the form of unbearable awkwardness between Kyle and his friends.

Kyle expected Kenny not to give a shit about what happened, in typical Kenny fashion. And he didn't, or at least that's how it initially appeared. Everything was normal after their return, for the most part, and Kenny seemed to find the situation more amusing than anything, making suggestive jabs at Kyle here and there. Though, Kenny went to bed soon after the second kiss, long before the rest of their friends and even Kyle himself, which was  _very_  out of character.

Kenny has always been the definition of a night owl, lurking about in the small hours of the night, free to do whatever he pleases, be that sex, drugs or any other suspicious and/or life-threatening  nighttime activity. This prompted Kyle to go check on him, and when he was met with a pensive, serious Kenny sitting silently at  the edge of his bed, that set off quite a few alarm bells. Even more when Kyle was asked to go. 

Additionally, the thought of seeing Stan's face after he was forced to bare witness to what was probably the most unpleasant spit-swap in the history of the universe made Kyle want to crawl into a hole and die. Kyle only got a slight glimpse of his expression after the first kiss. He did not look happy, nor at all amused. He didn't look angry either though, which is what Kyle sort of expected to be a typical jock's reaction after seeing one of his dear childhood bros suck another one's face. But, to be fair, Stan was no typical high school jock. He looked sort of disappointed, maybe even sad, and mostly taken aback. He also disappeared into one of the cabin's adjacent to the rec center before the second kiss even happened. It broke Kyle's heart. But, like, not in a gay way or anything. It's just that the idea of Stan perceiving him as anything similar to a stereotypical gay, like girly or weak, is dreadful to Kyle. Sure, at times he hated his image as the smart, nerdy, know-it-all sidekick, but that's what worked for the two of them. It's what defined the dynamic of their super-best friendship, that despite some obvious differences the two shared similar values and understood one another perfectly. 

Looking back on sophomore year, the argument that seemed so intense and serious to Kyle appears just plain ridiculous. He was angry about being known as Stan's best friend and nothing more, when in reality being Stan's best friend was the only thing he was ever certain of, the only thing that could make him feel happy and safe no matter what. And despite all this he was hasty and stupid enough to just chuck it out the window because of his pride. And he apologized, kind of, but not really. He just missed Stan and half-arsed a poor excuse for an apology to get his way. Boy, did he fuck that up. 

To be fair, this particular topic does always get him unreasonably riled up. It's like the second anything related to it comes to mind, all logic and common sense is thrown to the wind. That, in itself, is yet another issue Kyle has never before addressed. 

Why the hell did it piss him of so goddamn much?

Trapped in his thoughts, Kyle feels his consciousness begin to drift off. He's finally going to get some sleep.

 

South Park Elementary is deserted, without a soul in sight. It's bitterly cold, even inside the school building, and there seems to be a snow storm raging outside. Kyle stands alone in the center of the main hall, mesmerized by the distant howls of the wind. Everything looks the same as he remembers it, the large green cows logo beneath his feet in the very middle of the room, the two half-empty trophy cases at either side of the hallway door. The world's a bit fuzzy and dreary in color. He tries to tell the time on one of the nearby clocks, but the numbers are replaced by what look like letters of some sort of alien language. 

Kyle looks down at his hands. They're covered by his old green mittens that he wore in combination with his ushanka up to about seventh grade, when Cartman calling him a walking celery stick every day started getting old. 

The bell rings, and Kyle stars walking to his old classroom at the end of the hall. He recognizes the door to Mr Garrison's old classroom, but the letters that once spelled out 'fourth grade' across the door are now jumbled and illegible. Kyle opens the door, and each one of his old classmates are in there, sitting at their desks, while Mr Garrison teaches a lesson on... bugs? 

Kyle sits at his desk beside Stan's. He tries to make eye contact with him, but Stan's attention is on the blackboard and he stares forward in a daze, through heavy lidded eyes. Kyle calls out to him, but he doesn't budge, eyes fixed on Mr Garrison as he lectures. He tries once more, thinking maybe Stan hasn't heard him, only to be ignored once again.

Behind him, Kyle hears whats sounds like breathy wheezing, as though someone is attempting to hold back from wailing in agony, interrupted by the odd sniffle here and there. He turns his head to see a young Eric Cartman holding his gloved hand over his mouth, trying and failing miserably at holding back tears.  He's doubled over his desk, staring at it to hide his face from the rest of his classmates. 

"... However, there are many different flies that belong to this insect family, such as the peculiar Hoverfly. Now, the Hoverfly is well-known for mimicking the appearance of the more dangerous bee or wasp to ward off any potential predators, hence their notable yellow and black striped bodies," Mr Garrison continues to drone on, paying no attention to Cartman's sudden breakdown, along with his students. 

Kyle is stunned but turns back towards Cartman, asking him if he's okay and if there's anything Kyle can do to help. Cartman's crying is getting louder and louder by the second, and he's practically bawling at this point, his entire face red and puffy, cheeks streaked with tears. He looks up at Kyle at one point, acknowledging him unlike the rest of the classroom. Kyle tries to ask Stan or Kenny for help but both continue to ignore him. 

"... This is a form of deception that makes it easier for the Hoverfly to survive despite its truly harmless and weak nature, as it presents itself as something it's not: a bee or a wasp, which are both seen as dangerous for their stingers and venom. Of course, the Hoverfly has neither of these."

Cartman's cries are now booming throughout the classroom, and it sounds as though he may start screaming. He's yowling in misery, tears and snot both running down his chubby face, making a puddle on his desk. His bloodshoot eyes are filled with so much sadness and despair they send chills down Kyle's spine, giving him such bad anxiety he may vomit. He looks to Garrison, who's carrying the lesson on with the same robotic monotony as before, not moved in the slightest. Stan, Kenny and the rest of his classmates show the exact same cold indifference, so Kyle grabs onto Stan's jacket sleeve and tugs as hard as he can to snap him out of it. 

Finally, Stan turns to look at him.

Kyle immediately regrets his decision. 

He's staring daggers at Kyle, and his gaze may be colder than the blizzard outside. Kyle's heart drops and he whips his head around towards Kenny, only to receive the same look. Soon, all his classmates and Garrison are glaring at him, a malicious glint in their eyes. Kyle's surrounded at all sides by people who seem to want to kill him. His breath becomes ragged and uneven, the only sound to break the threatening silence. Kyle hadn't even noticed when Garrison stopped talking and Cartman stopped crying. 

He's getting ready to bolt, but before he leaves he looks over at Cartman, the one person not intent on murdering him. Ironic. Cartman's still visibly upset but also confused, casting a guarded look over his psychopathic classmates. A pang of sympathy hits Kyle, and before he knows it he's sprinting out the classroom door and towards the main exit, gripping Cartman's hand in his own. For a moment he wonders if maybe he's not being chased, that he's just paranoid, but one stray glance behind him rips away the smallest shred of hope he may have had. His fourth grade classmates are hot on his trail, still eerily expressionless with Stan, Kenny and Garrison at the head of the mob. 

They finally exit the building and head straight for the nearby pine forest, slowed considerably by the three feet of snow covering their path. The wind is wild and overpowering, pushing them every which way except forward. Kyle is practically dragging Cartman's body through the snow piles, and his face is already numb and stinging because of the snowflakes which move so fast they cut through the air. The angry mob behind them is having much less of an issue, but thankfully don't manage to reach them right away. 

As they enter the forest Kyle's anxiety simmers down slightly, and he dodges between several pine trees in a zigzag pattern to throw off his pursuers. He sits Cartman down against one of the tree trunks and takes a breath to regain some composure, noticing a shock of red peering out of the glistening white blanket of snow. 

Surrounding them, bursting out of the mounds of snow are familiar fiery red flowers, similar to ones his mother would often put in a vase on the living room coffee table. He kneels down to inspect them, but before he can even reach his hand out Stan appears from between the pines. He's staring Kyle down with an unwavering glare which makes him feel the size of an ant. He wants something from Kyle, and he's going to get it. 

Kyle's chest tightens without warning, heart pounding as though it might burst, mind fogging up, throat closing. He reaches inside his jacket to clutch his chest, trying to somehow quell the literal heartache he's going through.

He wonders if this is how it feels to have a heart attack, if this is it for him.

His body falls against one of the pine trees, and he's wheezing and gasping like a madman. As he pulls his hand from out his jacket he notices the very same type of bright red flowers surrounding him within his own palm. He's fucking bleeding flowers. And they're starting to wilt.

He stares at the dying flowers, then looks up at Stan. He's no longer angry and murderous. He's the smiling, fresh-faced, fourth grade Stan that Kyle once had the pleasure of being super-best friends with, red poof ball hat and all. He sits down next to Kyle and takes the flowers from his hands.

"It's going to be okay, man," he says. "You know it is."

 

Kyle wakes up crying. Well, barely. His eyes have welled up with tears, but it's definitely not Dream-Cartman level crying. He rubs his eyes, casting a look around the empty cabin he dozed off in. He can faintly hear some rap song being blasted a few cabins away from his, indicating that he must've slept into the evening. Of course, his friends are having yet another party. Though, to be fair, they are leaving in about two days and may as well make the most of what little free time they have left to fuck around. 

But Kyle's mind is in shambles. This fun little getaway has flipped major aspects of himself that he thought he knew on their ass. The idea of him being simply straight is laughable now, not to mention that his feelings towards Stan are even more muddled than they ever were before. This volatile state of mind would only be worsened by partying and the irresponsibility that comes with it, but Kyle doesn't want to be alone with his thoughts any longer. He'll go insane.

Plus, Kyle can't help but feel a burning desire to apologize to both Stan and Kenny for being a selfish, egotistical prick these past few years and not even realizing it. The thought that this entire time he's been walking around like some gigantic douchebag, treating people like dirt because of his own confusion and frustration over his sexuality is enough to make Kyle never want to show his disgraceful mug ever again. He wrote off his entire friendship with Stan for the simple reason that other people's opinions of him were making him feel insecure, then had the audacity to treat Kenny as Stan's replacement.He also essentially projected his negative emotions onto other people, like Cartman, because his fucked-up mind couldn't process them. And despite Cartman's deplorable behavior even following his mother's death, Kyle's hateful remarks surely just fueled the fire. 

A party definitely isn't the place for Kyle's heartfelt repentance, but his apology is about two years overdue so he's not too concerned with the suitability of the circumstances. He rises from his mattress and heads straight out the door. It's time for him to be honest.

Finding two people among a forest-full of drunken teenagers isn't as easy of a task as Kyle hoped. So far, the only familiar faces he's run into are Bebe and Red, and the both of them were too wasted and stoned to be of any assistance, much like everyone else here. After about fifteen minutes or so of searching, Kyle's ambition is beginning to wane and he decides to take a breather. He sits on the porch steps of a nearby cabin, leaning his head on the railing. He could use a drink right about now, but Stan and Kenny deserve more than the incoherent, jumbled apology that Kyle would no doubt deliver if he got tipsy. So he sits in silence for a bit, people watching, hoping to see someone he can recognize among the vast swarms of people. As he's getting up to continue his search, a guy he's never seen before decides he wants to go up the steps while carrying a cup of alcohol in each hand, and the two awkwardly bump into one another. 

"Oh shit! Dude, I'm so sorry," he says, and Kyle realizes he's just had a full cup of beer spilled over the front of his T-shirt, which is now soaked. Wonderful. 

"Um, no, it's fine, it's not that bad of a spill," Kyle lies. Even in the dark it's noticeable and to make things more uncomfortable, the evening is chillier than usual. 

"It's looks pretty bad, man," he says, apologetic. Well, at least he's not denying it like a total douche. 

"Don't worry about it, it was an accident. I'll just walk to my cabin and change. It'll probably dry out by the time I reach it, but what else can I do, really," Kyle jokes. This makes finding Kenny and Stan way more time consuming and difficult, but he'll just have to bare with it, despite the frustration.

"I have a spare shirt in a cabin near here, I'll lend it to you if you want," he says, and he sounds genuinely sorry.

This guy's nice. Really nice. Almost suspiciously nice. But Kyle isn't in the position to argue, and frankly he doesn't want to, seeing as the feeling of being drenched to the skin on a breezy night is not the greatest. So he agrees, and the two walk for about a minute before reaching the guy's cabin. 

"I'm Eddie, by the way. From Middle Park," he says as they enter. 

"Kyle. Sorry we had to meet under such awkward circumstances."

"Nah, that's my bad," Eddie says, and he flashes Kyle a toothy grin. He's very tall, with dark hair and dark eyes, and he sort of reminds Kyle of an edgier looking version of Stan. He hands Kyle a navy blue T-shirt with the picture of a revolver on the front, surrounded by the words ' _Middle Park Cowboys_ '. Kyle lets out a chortle.

"Ah, great, a Cowboys shirt. Can't wait to get my ass kicked."

That's no joke. Cartman may hate the school with a burning passion but he also has an innate desire to harm and ridicule his rivals. He avoided school sports games up until the eighth grade, when he went out of boredom and ended up fist fighting the opposing team's mascot. It was a sight for sore eyes. 

Eddie laughs and says, "Sorry, it'll probably be a bit baggy on you as well, but it's the only other shirt  I've got."

"That's just 'cause you're freakishly tall. I don't mind, though," Kyle says, pulling his wet T-shirt over his head. He feels kind of vulnerable changing in front of a stranger, but he doesn't want to make a big deal out of it so he can go find Stan soon as possible. 

The Cowboys shirt is way too baggy and long, just as Eddie predicted. 

As the two are about to exit, Kyle takes notice of the two red cups of beer Eddie was carrying on the bedside table.

"Wait, I didn't just cockblock you, did I?" Kyle asks, though, looking back on it, the answer seems pretty obvious. 

Eddie laughs again, caught off guard by Kyle's bluntness. "You kind of did. I'm the one who poured the beer on you, though, so we're both responsible, I guess."

"Oh, man, sorry 'bout that."

"No, it's cool. I offered to give you the shirt. And besides, I'm sure I'll see him around later, he won't mind."

... He? Did Kyle hear that wrong? He must've. There's no way he... Well, why not? Kyle knows he eventually has to accept that gay people are a thing. And that he may be one of them. So he holds back his initial shock, as well as the urge to ask questions despite his bubbling curiosity, and he smiles and nods in response. Like a normal human being. 

"What about you? Why were you just chilling on the steps, alone?"

"Ah. That's a  _very_  long,  _very_  weird story," Kyle says, cringing at the thought of all his screw-ups associated with it.

"I've got all night."

Kyle considers this. Sharing his most intimate thoughts and emotions from over the past two years with a complete stranger? For the very first time? What could possibly go wrong? 

"It's kind of personal, though," he says.

"Oh. You don't have to tell me anything, dude. We are strangers, to be fair. But if you want to get it off your chest, I'm all ears," Eddie says, giving Kyle a comforting grin.

Eddie's offer is tempting. Very fucking tempting. Kyle has been repressing all these complicated, irritating feelings within himself for such a long time, he desperately wants to be honest with himself and another human being at least once, before he implodes. He can't even imagine the tremendous relief he would get from saying 'this is me, and I'm done fucking fussing over it'. But there's always the risk of being outed by this random guy he only just met. Now that would be peachy.

Although, Eddie is gay. Probably. He understands the difficulty and pressure surrounding coming out, and the horror of being outed before you're ready. What if he's a cruel gay, though? He was nice enough tonight, going out of his way to help Kyle out.

"Kyle?" Eddie snaps him out of his thoughtful daze, looking slightly concerned. 

"Oh, um, sorry about that," Kyle says. "You sure you still want to hear this? Because I'm about to unload a fuck ton of baggage."

"Go for it."

And so Kyle does, starting from the argument, all the way up to the bizarre dream from earlier today, including every single emotion he's had about his sexuality, about Stan, about Kenny and Nichole. At some point the two relocated to the bottom bunk of one of the beds, where Kyle continued to retell the story without making eye-contact a single time so as to avoid further humiliation. 

"And that's pretty much where I'm at," Kyle says, finally looking back at Eddie. 

"Shit," he says. He looks thoroughly intrigued, as though he's trying to make sense of the whole story in his head. "I was not expecting that, to be honest."

Kyle sighs. "Me neither. Never saw it coming."

"I just thought you would tell me a sob story about how your girlfriend dumped you or something, but this is-"

"A sob story about how I dumped my best friend and subsequently fucked myself over."

Eddie laughs and says, "That's way more interesting."

"Glad someone can find amusement in this shit show of a situation," Kyle says.

"So, this best friend of yours, when you see him, what is it that you're going to say?"

"I'll apologize. Tell him that the whole argument was just me being insecure about how people saw me because I didn't want to be known for what I was. Or am. Which is, uh, gay, I guess."

Kyle cringes. It still feels somehow _wrong_ , saying it out loud.

"What about you acting weird later on?"

"I chalk that up to me being anxious about him getting the wrong idea if he were to find out about me, and him being grossed out by it."

Eddie gives Kyle a questioning look. "You sure 'bout that?"

Kyle's puzzled by his dubiousness. He'd thought this over about a million times in the past week, sifted through a million different possible explanations, and this one fit perfectly. So, yeah, he's sure. Right?

"What do you mean? Of course I am, I've given this a lot of thought. Maybe even too much thought," he says.

"Well, yeah, you seem to have focused on it a lot this past week. But that's just this week, dude. Think about how you've felt the entire time, how you really felt."

"How I felt?" Kyle thinks, "I was afraid of being rejected by this guy and everyone else. So I acted dumb. Then I just missed him."

Eddie heaves and exasperated sigh. "Listen, Kyle. And this is just my honest opinion. You're making this out to be about you discovering that you're gay, but the whole story is about your relationship with this person. It comes off like he's the only thing you think about."

"Don't tell me you think I'm in love with my best friend," Kyle jokes in exaggerated disbelief, but as the word's leave his mouth they begin to make sense. 

Except no, no they don't.

"It sort of comes off that way, yes."

Um, no.

Stan is his best friend. His super-best friend. Is and always will be. Even during their argument, Kyle never considered him any less, though he would never admit this to anyone. Thinking of Stan in any way other than platonic and brotherly seems like an injustice to their super-best friendship. As though he's defiling Stan, somehow.  

Although, full disclosure, it's not like the thought hasn't crossed Kyle's mind in the past. Every time Cartman made one of his homophobic jabs at Kyle and Stan for being as close as they were, or if in the locker room he were to catch Stan changing in his peripheral, the idea would creep into his head, taunting him. He'd usually resort to thinking up the most gruesome, brutal scene when this happened, something along the lines of his or Stan's head being bashed against the hard concrete, as a way of training himself against it. It associated the shameful thoughts with pain and suffering, which is what they would no doubt cause if they were allowed to run rampant. So, Kyle found a way to keep this more or less under control. 

"How do you know I'm not just a straight guy who really loves and values his bro?" Kyle deflects. 

Eddie ponders this for a moment, then says, "Have you ever thought about wanting to kiss him? Or do something more, that's romantic or sexual?"

Kyle cringes at 'sexual'. Thinking about Stan in any way close to that feels wrong, dirty. But... "There was this one time, during capture the flag. I kind of felt the urge to, uh, kiss him, and that went on for like the whole day after."

Kyle regrets saying the words as soon as they escape his mouth.

"Do you still want to kiss him?"

Kyle takes a minute to think, though the answer is evident. 

"Okay, okay," Kyle concedes, "I actually may see where you're coming from. I think about him a little too much for it to be normal. But that  doesn't mean..."

And that's when the panic attack ensues.

There are far too many things that can go wrong with this fucked up situation, and at this point it seems that anything that can go wrong, will most definitely go wrong. Stan will be disgusted by Kyle's revelation, and even more so by his subconscious infatuation with him. He'll never want to see Kyle again, and with that Kyle's worst nightmare of all time will have become his inevitable, gut-wrenching reality.

"Dude, you okay?" Eddie asks, and just like that Kyle's eyes are welling up with tears for the second time in one freaking day. 

"I really, really don't want to be in love with him. I mean, I love him, but being  _in_ love is a whole other ball game and I fucking suck at sports."

Eddie huffs out a sympathetic laugh, putting his hand on Kyle's shoulder. "Listen man," he says, "I'm not telling you how to act here or anything, but with the way you described this guy, he doesn't seem like the type that would freak out and leave over something like this."

"Huh. You're right. He would most likely hide his discomfort while it ate away at him, forcing himself to hang out with me. I can already see the pity and the mild disgust in his eyes."

"You're being way too fucking dramatic about this, man. You'll never know how he'll react 'til you try. Hell, he might be in love with you for all you know."

Kyle laughs at the thought. Stan is the straightest person he's ever met. 

"Well, guess I won't have to worry about that since I'm not telling him shit," he says.

"Kyle-"

"Nope. No way, dude. This is too much shit to discover about myself in one day," he says as he rises from the bed. "I still need to apologize, and this can wait. And maybe it's a spur of the moment thing. You never know. Yeah. Yeah, that has to be it."

Eddie gives Kyle a doubtful look, then he says, "It looks like you know."

"Nope, I don't know anything. I've never known anything in my life, ever."

Eddie chuckles. "Right. Well, I'll see you around then, man. Good luck."

"Thanks," Kyle says, and with that he grabs his beer-soaked T-shirt and exits to continue his search for Kenny and Stan.

 

He eventually finds both of them in the rec center, the most obvious location. Of course. They're in the middle of a conversation as Kyle enters, solely the two of them in the entire room. Kyle's pretty sure this is because everyone else is too busy watching some random guys release illegal fireworks outside, and though that's tempting, Kyle has to do this.

Kenny is the first to notice him enter. He stops talking mid sentence, grins and says, "Well, speak of the devil."

Great, Kyle thinks. He's already the topic of their conversation. Stan turns around, looking rather uneasy, though he tries to hide it with a sad excuse for a grin. Now's the time, he's got to come out. To be honest. Things will never go back to how they were if he keeps hiding his true feelings from everybody, including himself. 

"Guys, I've got to-"

"Stan and I were just talking about your little fling with Nichole and how the whole, uh, situation last night might've fucked that up big time," Kenny says, seemingly laughing at the memory. "Sorry 'bout that."

He's chipper. Kyle's surprised. Kenny's moods fluctuate so rapidly sometimes it's difficult to even keep track. 

"It's Cartman's fault, like always, so no need to apologize. That douche has always got to make things weird somehow. With Nichole and with you guys."

"True that. But it wasn't weird for me, since you are my best pal," Kenny says, slinging his arm around Kyle's shoulder. 

"Pretty sure best friends don't make out with one another," Stan says. 

"Pretty sure you're right," Kyle agrees.

"True friends, they should be able to do that shit without feeling uncomfortable. That's how you know they're the real deal," Kenny says, staring off into nothingness, as though this is the most profound statement he's ever made. 

"Dude, you're so oversexed you can't even differentiate between what's platonic and what's romantic love," Stan says.

Ha, neither can Kyle, looks like. 

"Love is love, Stanley," Kenny says, and he gives him a wink.

Kyle sighs. "Speaking of, um- I, uh, I've got to tell you guys something, and it- I don't know if you'll- I mean, I don't-" 

"Dude are you high or something?" Kenny snorts.

Stan's expression goes from skeptical to slightly concerned, and he says, "Kyle, it's okay, just slow down. You sound like Tweek."

He squeezes Kyle shoulder to comfort him. Kyle's heart skips a beat. Fuck.

"Dude, what's up?" Kenny says. 

Kyle can barely look at them, let alone say something. Their eyes show both curiosity and concern, and it feels as though they're slowly boring into Kyle's soul, as though he's about to be stripped bare of the mask he's hidden behind for the past however many years. His anxiety is ripping him apart from the inside out, and he can't help but look away to the rec center entrance. There's no running from this now. Not anymore. 

"I...," he opens his mouth to speak, but fails again.

"Seriously, dude, we won't judge you. You know that," Stan says, eyes fixed on Kyle.

"Yeah, hell, I wouldn't be surprised if I flipped you from that kiss last night and now you're a homo. Shit can't surprise me," Kenny says, chuckling.

Kyle's stomach lurches. As usual, Kenny manages to hit the nail on the head without even trying. Well, save for the 'flipping' bit, since the kiss more so clarified things.

Kyle's silent for what feels like eternity, unsure of how to respond, shifting his eyes from one side of the room to the other, desperate to get out. 

"Wait..." Kenny says. " _Is_  that what happened?"

When Kyle finally looks at him his eyebrows are raised in intrigue, and he looks just about ready to rejoice. Way to take this lightly, Kenny. 

"No, that's not what happened! You didn't flip me, Kenny, don't flatter yourself. I just, realized some shit, okay?" Kyle says, sounding more annoyed than he intended. 

Stan seems to be trying his best to keep a serious expression, but his eyes widen ever so slightly, and all of a sudden he's staring at Kyle in full blown confusion. Kyle can't help but fidget. This is exactly what he wanted to avoid. 

"So what you're saying is..," Stan continues, brows furrowing. 

"I, uh, I think I'm- I might be gay. No. No, I'm not gay."

"You're- You aren't- What?

"I'm not straight," Kyle says, and that much he knows is true. "I don't know what the fuck is really up with me but... last night, and for the past two years, even, I knew something was, um, off. Our kiss just sort of cleared things up for me. So I guess I should thank Cartman, huh? Not that I'm into you or anything like that. Fuck. That's not what I... "

Kenny and Stan both looked floored, making Kyle feel vulnerable as hell. But his had to be done, right?

Right? 

"What I wanted to say was, I'm sorry, to both of you. These past few years I've treated you both kind of like shit all because I was confused and insecure about myself and who the fuck I was. I was convinced that someone would find out about my repressed feelings and assume shit, like that I like you, Stan, because of how close we were. And I thought you'd be disgusted by me as a result of that, so rather than you leaving me I guess I left you and threw our life long friendship in the fucking garbage. Just 'cause I'm a selfish and scared piece of shit. I'm sorry, dude. And, Kenny, I sort of dragged you around as a second Stan afterwards, more focused on me and what I wanted than you and what you wanted. And I'm not trying to make excuses, this just- it needed to be said."

Kenny and Stan are silent for a moment, stunned by the sudden revelation. 

Finally, Kenny breaks the silence and says, "Kyle, if I didn't want to be friends with you, I wouldn't let you drag me around. For me, that's just how you are, and frankly, with you, every person is a replacement for Stan." 

Stan laughs, giving Kyle an amused smile. Kyle smiles back.

"You worry too much, dude," Kenny says, patting Kyle on the back. "I love you, bro. Fag or not. No ho-"

"If you say no homo I will punch you."

"No homo," Kenny teases. 

Kyle hits him hard on the shoulder, eliciting an exaggerated yowl of pain from Kenny.  

"I'm actually pissed that you'd think I'd respond that way," Stan says. He actually sounds kind of hurt. 

"I know, dude. I'm so fucking sorry. I'm irrational as hell and love to jump the gun. I'm working on it, though."

"Well, to be clear. I don't care that you're gay or not, Kyle. We could get over that shit. We've definitely been through worse in the past. Plus, it's really none of our business who you chose to, uh, bone. No matter how weird the thought may be," Stan says. He reddens, shaking the thoughts out of his head. 

Kenny laughs, and Kyle forces himself to join in. He feels relief, but also somewhat of a sinking feeling knowing that it's imperative to get rid of these bizarre emotions for Stan. He's been accepted thus far, no need to push it. Plus, this is clearly what Stan wants.

"So we're good, then?" Kenny asks.

Kyle and Stan share an understanding look, like they used to when they were kids, and nod in unison. 

"Great! Now let's go get black out drunk while they're still lighting fireworks," Kenny suggests, heading for the door. 

They make their way out of the rec center and towards the lake, and for a moment everything feels alright. Normal. Kyle tries his best to ignore the growing pit in his stomach, hoping against hope that this won't be another thing he has to confront. 

 

 

 


End file.
